


The White Raven

by Thornvale



Series: Beyond the Black Veil [2]
Category: Maleficent (Disney Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Comedy, Depression, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Emotionally Repressed, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Family Issues, Fantasy, Gen, Ghosts, Gun Violence, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Magic, Mild Sexual Content, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Past Abuse, Pregnancy, Recovery, Relapsing, Trauma, Undead, Violence, mature themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-24 20:35:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 41,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22264063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thornvale/pseuds/Thornvale
Summary: Sequel to The Treasure of Witches.‘There was once a time that Maleficent had considered herself the truest evil in lands all around. As time passed, she realised just how wrong she was. She was not evil because her enormous capacity for love simply would not allow it. It was love that had saved Aurora from her curse and it was love that had healed Maleficent’s old wounds in acceptance of herself and those around her.But Wynne, another faerie of enormous magical potential, was the true portrait of wickedness.’Maleficent finds herself in a state of unrest. What matters to her more than anything in the world is her family and their happiness, but strain in their relationships and rising political dissent threatens to tear down everything they have so painstakingly built.
Relationships: Diaval/Maleficent (Disney)
Series: Beyond the Black Veil [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597402
Comments: 72
Kudos: 189





	1. Moonrise

It was nearly two years since the death of the Moon Witch.

The near destruction of the kingdom of Wickpon was fully averted and the land was restored to its former glory with help from the Dark Fae that had settled in its frost-touched forests and mountains. It shared in a new friendship with the kingdoms of the Moors and Ulstead, forming a political bond that was the envy of lands all around. 

Ulstead flourished, bolstered by new trade with the northern kingdom, which specialised in minerals and precious stones mined from the mountains. The Moors had no need of such things, but existed with more confidence now that they had friendships with two human kingdoms. The world had been cruel to the Moorfolk over the years, and to have the chances of discrimination and invasion lessened served as something of a relief. 

Queen Aurora and Prince Phillip had welcomed into the world Prince Riordan, now a year and a half old, an energetic and fair-haired son of two kingdoms. Born into a time of peace, the boy was happy and healthy and beloved by both lands. Maleficent spent as much time with him as she could between her duties as Guardian, just as endeared and intrigued by the boy as she had been with Aurora when she was an infant. Children were a weakness of hers, she would readily admit. She would often bring him to play with the children of the forest fae that had settled among the trees of the Moors, and she would watch them bond with a smile even as something nagged at her in the back of her mind. 

Perhaps children would be a possibility for her, too. One day. Never had she thought she would even consider it, but then again, she never thought she would love a man enough to bear a child herself. In the late Summer, when the mating season of forest fae was in full bloom, such urges went ignored and stifled for years on end and she thought to never acknowledge them again. It was only now, as the turn of Autumn dawned upon her yet again, that she was able to regard those feelings with hope instead of derision.

The biggest issue with that, however, was that she had not brought it up with Diaval and was nervous to do so, for though their handfasting was half a year ago, they were yet unmated. 

Diaval was changed following his ordeal in Wickpon. Whereas before he had been carefree, quick-witted, and sometimes as thoughtless as a bird, he was now something more. Certainly more human in the way that he seemed to regard the world, burdened with the knowledge of mistrust and fear in wake of all that happened. He was slower to offer his opinions and advice - and that was if he even attended court at all, either busy with his diplomatic missions or simply unwilling to get out of the nest. There was something behind his eyes that Maleficent did not recognise, now, but it was something that she understood. She had been there herself.

It was because she understood that she did not question or press him. Though they had spent many nights trying to effectuate a long stifled desire, it only ever ended in frustration on his part, whether struggling to respond or enduring unwitting transformations before they could really get anywhere. It had only truly bothered Maleficent insofar as it clearly bothered him, but as Summer began its slow fade into Autumn and her instincts were riled, she wondered what her chances were.

She explained it all to Merin, simply because there was nobody else she could talk to about it, and the elder of the forest fae was the closest thing to a mother that she had ever known. Not that she would ever venture to say such a thing out loud. 

Diaval was not in the Moors, though was due to return from Wickpon soon. Frustrated and infuriatingly lonely in his absence, Maleficent journeyed to the Caves of Ancestry and found Merin there among the ravens. The elder’s long, grey hair faced her, adorned with those little stone raven beads and bones, and a crown of dark feathers sat around her worn horns. She did not turn to greet Maleficent and merely grunted at her, continuing to fling chunks of rodent at the large, black birds gathering enthusiastically at her bare feet.

Merin was one of the few fae who would not bow and wax lyrical about the Phoenix. The lack of demonstrated respect had annoyed Maleficent at first, though as time passed, she found it refreshing. The elder had lived too long and experienced too much to bother with such trivial things. The ravens were a different story, however - a few of them approached Maleficent and regarded her with great interest, dark heads tilting this way and that, and some of them bowed lowly and offered up their food for consideration. 

“Stop that,” Merin admonished them when she finally turned, and she waved her wooden staff in their direction. The creatures cawed back at her like petulant children and fluttered off. “Yes, she is very beautiful! She is also taken! Foolish birds.” She turned to the younger faerie with a roll of her eyes, then disappeared off into the woods, grumbling to herself.

Taking that as a cue to follow, Maleficent moved warily behind the elder and through the ancient trees.

“Pardon the idiot creatures. They are this year’s juveniles,” Merin explained haughtily. “They weren’t at the handfasting, you see. Even outside of their breeding season, they strive to impress everything that moves. It’s their way until they get older and finally choose a mate.”

“When is their season?” Maleficent asked, trying to disguise her genuine curiosity as a passing interest.

“Late Winter, early Spring, I suppose. That’s when they get even more obnoxious. You mean to tell me you have known a raven for well over twenty years and do not know this?”

“We are not exactly in the habit of discussing such things.” Thinking for a moment, Maleficent added, “He can be more insistent with his attention come the Spring, I suppose.”

“You _should_ be in the habit of discussing such things. Every good relationship needs communication, as apparently difficult for the two of you though it may be.”

They emerged into the clearing that homed the old, stone circle and the statues of the Dark Fae’s forefathers. There on the pedestal held by the raven was the broken remnants of the Phoenix Emerald, the cursed artefact that had once housed many dark secrets. The other treasures once guarded by the statues had since been removed by the relevant clans in wake of the Moon Witch’s betrayal. It was a lonely place that served no purpose, now, only reminding Maleficent of that terrible night when she had flown Diaval there from Wickpon in a frantic effort to bring his soul back from the Otherworld. 

Merin turned to her, her long, ragged wings sweeping the grass at their feet. As if aware of Maleficent’s feelings regarding the place, her pointed features softened just slightly. 

“Ah, it’s the season of the forest fae. Is that why you’re here? You don’t visit me all Summer, content with the family and the peace you have forged, and now you’re back. Is there trouble in paradise?”

Maleficent stoically did not answer, her jaw tensing with annoyance. 

“I thought so. If you ever need help, my girl, you need only ask. It really isn’t that difficult in the scheme of things. What is it, then? Arguments? Problems conceiving?”

Feeling another stab of irritation, Maleficent looked away as something of a blush prickled at her cheeks. She had never talked about this sort of thing because there had never been anybody to talk about it with. Now there was Merin, a fellow forest fae and a woman who had lived a long life, and somebody who spent a perturbing amount of time around the raven unkindness atop that woodland mesa. If somebody could even come close to helping, it was her.

“Something of the sort,” Maleficent said somewhat stiffly, steadfastly keeping her gaze averted. 

She could feel Merin staring at her. Reading her. With a huff, she tugged a bit on the glittering shawl around her shoulders and fought the great urge to stalk off and forget that she had ever come back here. She did not at all like the feelings and memories that this place gave her.

“What, then?” Merin pressed, though with patience. 

Irritation turned into upset. Surprised by the pang of emotion in her chest, Maleficent was even more careful to keep herself turned away. She sneered at the stone circle ahead and turned back to the forest, seating herself down on a wooden stump to come face to face with the wilds, instead. 

“Diaval is not himself,” she admitted quietly. “It is getting worse. I thought that with time, he would begin to feel better, but he keeps everything so close to his heart. I’m sure I don’t know half of what is going through his mind. What is obvious is that Wynne ruined how he understands, well … certain things.”

“Perhaps,” Wynne muttered, stroking at her pointed chin. “You understand that, of course. You don’t want to hurt him. He doesn’t want to hurt you. A new calling arises, however, as Summer draws to an end. You can hardly expect to have children if you’re not -“

“I know that,” Maleficent retorted sharply. “I do not know what to do. I feel so foolish having such thoughts already.”

“It isn’t foolish. You have known each other for a long time. You already raised a human child as your own. And consider this, Maleficent: perhaps his views of such things are not distorted. Not entirely. Have you considered that he is a raven and not a fae like you? Everything about the way we do things must seem strange to him. Those thoughts and desires must be confusing at the best of times for one not born a human. Perhaps what you need to think about, too, is your approach. It needs not be a serious matter. It can be fun and relaxed, can’t it? I daresay that he doesn’t know that yet.”

Merin was right, of course. Diaval was not human, not like Stefan. It had been remarkably easy to coax Stefan into intimate affairs because humans worked in similar ways to fae. Perhaps she really had been going the wrong way about it with Diaval, who was accustomed to different ways that she had not considered at all. 

Quietly thinking about that, she looked at the ravens playing nearby. They were funny creatures, always showing off and teasing each other. She relaxed a little when Merin joined her there on the stump and followed her gaze.

“I’ve been around these creatures for a long time,” Merin continued. “I wouldn’t call them mere animals. They’re too intelligent. They’re people, in a way. Diaval especially for all you gave him. When a raven is courting, it will bring its intended mate gifts. Food or something … hm, something that sparkles. It will try to impress with its appearance, its intelligence, and its aerial ability. Does this sound familiar?”

Maleficent briefly closed her eyes. Of course it sounded familiar. Diaval had done all of those things because that was what he understood as showing affection and love, but she had always shrugged it off as peculiar and bird-like quirks of his, never really thinking about their significance. Perhaps she had been too afraid to.

“A raven will bow and show off its plumage. They might groom each other. They will play and they will fight. Maybe there are things keeping you apart physically, but understanding the raven way as he tries to understand yours is a step in the right direction. And _tell_ him that you want to grow your family, will you? These birds are many things, but they are not psychic.”

“It does not sound so different to the ways of the fae.”

“Perhaps not. Birds and the fae are kindred spirits, after all. We are descended from the greatest of them. Still, it will not hurt you to cater to his instincts as much as you your own.”

As if to give a sort of demonstration, one of the ravens hopped over and strutted about in front of Maleficent, puffing out its impressive array of ink-black feathers. After a few little bowing motions with its head, it extended the hackles on its throat and made a wide assortment of noises, whether copying sounds it had heard or simply inventing a few choice warbles of its own. 

Endeared, Maleficent observed the creature with a small smile. She never understood why humans regarded ravenkind with such contempt.

“Within reason,” Merin added, trying to shoo the posturing bird away with her staff. “Unless you feel like making such noises at him, of course.”

“He’s just human enough he might find that strange,” murmured Maleficent, her smile falling away as her thoughts returned to her concerns. “Human enough to remember what happened and be afflicted by it. I fear nothing I do can ever truly help him.”

“There is nothing you can do but be at his side. Even the Phoenix could not change the past, you know. If she could, that dratted emerald never would have existed.” With something of a sigh, Merin idly shifted dead leaves about on the ground with the base of her staff, searching for the green of grass underneath. “That boy took a nice dip into the pool of the Otherworld. Has he mentioned anything about it?”

Concerned by Merin’s tone, Maleficent turned her attention away from the ravens and back to the elder, finding her gazing off into the trees in thought. The question held a remarkable weight to it, rumbling the worries placed neatly off to the side in reluctance to address them. Time had been the answer, or so she had thought. It had worked well enough for her. Though the scars Stefan and the humans had afflicted would never truly heal over, she had since come to embrace them and learnt to move on. 

That pang of emotion welled up again, bubbling into Maleficent’s thoughts like a flooding creek. 

“He doesn’t speak of anything that happened. Sometimes he won’t. Sometimes he can’t. His shapeshifting has more power over him than he does over it. It’s bizarre,” she murmured, steeling herself with a breath, “when it seems he might make progress, he will change.”

“Hm.” Merin hummed, pondering. “And how are _you_ doing following it all?”

Maleficent might have appeared as cool and stoic as ever, though that facade was more easily broken, now. Though peace reigned and she was happy, it meant that the stakes were higher. There were people that she cared for dearly, and to ever see them suffer filled her with such ire and deepest empathy that it was difficult to keep her feelings unseen. Her gaze flickered down, her jaw taut with poorly restrained upset. 

“I fear that happiness is only temporary,” she said, her tone flat. “I fear that something will happen and I will lose them. I cannot help but realise it is not a question of if, but when.”

Merin frowned at that. “Maleficent -“

“Aurora is human, and as for Diaval, well … his future is clouded in mystery.”

“Life is something to be celebrated while it exists. To live in fear of the future is to barely live at all. No, you can’t protect them from the inevitable. Nobody can be protected from that. Be comforted by your growing family, Maleficent. Your daughter has a son, and if all goes well, you too will bear children. You will not face the world alone again.” The elder made a slight tutting sound. “Find your mate and discuss your concerns. It should be no more difficult than it is talking to me, should it?”

Malficent did not agree. She had hurt many people in her time, whether out of vengeance or sheer rage. It was a remarkably easy thing to do, especially for a being as powerful and as cutting as her, and she knew well enough that the people easiest to hurt were the ones that she cared about, whether unwittingly or not. Was Diaval ready to have such a discussion?

Making a slight noise of assent, she stood from the stump and spread her wings, a deep nervousness settling in her heart. 

* * *

Having taken Merin’s advice to heart, Maleficent made a short trip to Ulstead to find a gift ready for Diaval’s return. That evening, she flew to the Woodland Castle in the Moors, expecting to see her mate filling Aurora in on his diplomatic visit to Wickpon. However, he was not there, and instead she found Aurora pacing agitatedly about by the clear streams that flanked the court. 

The young queen seemed as concerned as she was vexed, fiddling with her long sleeves. A cloud of attendants composed of flower fairies and fireflies followed her with every step she took. When she heard Maleficent land, she quickly turned and approached her with wide, worried eyes, stumbling a bit over the hem of her dress. 

“Mother, he’s late. Again! I asked him to be here by sunset this day. I always end up worrying that something has happened!”

Attuned as the faerie was to the presence of her mate, given that it was her magic that filled him with life, she could feel him fluttering about at the very edges of her senses, which meant that he was likely in the Moors. Unsure whether this would annoy Aurora further, she kept silent, though realised it was the wrong decision when Aurora threw her hands up into the air out of sheer frustration. 

“A letter from Queen Mera to John was supposed to go with Phillip’s caravan tonight! Now whatever news she had to relay is going to be late. I wouldn’t mind if it was the first time, or if there was a storm, or - or _something_. He does want to be my envoy, doesn’t he?”

Maleficent remained silent a moment longer, not sure how to answer. She wished she could give a confident response. Drifting forwards, she moved a lock of her daughter’s hair back behind her ear and then stroked her smooth cheek, trying to douse the evident frustration. Inwardly, her worries worsened. 

“Forgive your father, Beastie,” she said placatingly, her eyes filling with a rare sorrow. “He loves being your envoy. It is only that he has a lot on his mind, and, well … ravens are easily distracted, you know. I can feel him in the Moors as we speak.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” Aurora huffed, folding her arms, though she soon sighed and relented. “Both of you. You’ve been so on edge lately. Is there something going on that I don’t know about? Are you arguing?”

“No,” Maleficent retorted quickly, surprised. 

“Then what? Are you not happy?”

“We are happy together, Aurora.” The response was perhaps a little too stern, a suggestion of finality to it. “Wickpon is a particularly difficult kingdom for him to visit. You know him, you know he will be devastated to realise he has caused you upset.”

“He needs to tell me,” the queen sighed again. “He needs to tell me when it’s difficult. I still don’t know everything that happened there! Trying to get him to talk about it is like getting blood out of a stone. If only I understood, I’d be able to help him, wouldn’t I?” Aurora resumed pacing, then, though seemed more troubled than angry. “I heard cruel rumours among the frost fairies. They can’t possibly be true. Can they?”

“Let rumours be mere rumours in the Moors. They are more truth than he ever wanted to be known.”

The lack of clarification was perhaps an answer in of itself. It had seemed necessary in the moment, though Maleficent began to regret it the moment Aurora covered her mouth with her hand, her bright eyes wrought with an awful realisation. The silence afterwards was stifling. Aurora’s hand slowly lowered after a moment as she collected herself, her anger apparently vanquished.

“He did not want anybody else to know,” Maleficent added, guilt bubbling low in her belly, “but I want you to understand why he may seem different. He gave more than just his life to try and save Wickpon from that miserable creature.”

The queen’s mouth moved as she tried to find words to speak, but she came up short and instead lowered her head, pained. After a sniffle, she daintily rubbed her nose on her sleeve and regarded her mother with a watery but furious gaze, hurt by the news. 

“How could anyone be so cruel?”

The question lingered, hanging there like a weight within the silent court. The bubbling of the streams offered no answers, and neither did the gentle rustling of leaves from the forests. The absence of a raven’s caws up there in the trees was notable in that moment; it had been a long time since such a song had graced the castle, where the sounds were once so frequent. 

“I’ll speak to him. I will make sure he knows he needs to be more prompt in the future,” Maleficent said after a small pause. 

“It’s all right, Mother. I shouldn’t have sent him there in the first place. I just worry that something might have happened whenever he disappears.” Her cheeks rosy with upset, Aurora looked towards the ground again. “I have come so close to losing both of you. After all the things you have endured, here I am worrying about some stupid letter.”

Stopping her daughter in her stride, Maleficent placed a hand on the young queen’s shoulder and then drew her into a loose embrace. It was an opportunity to hide the emotion becoming more and more plain on her own face. Regretfully, anger was beginning to rear its head, familiar in its presence. It was not aimed towards anybody in particular. Rather, she was angry that peace and happiness had not yet truly settled within her family as it had across the united kingdoms. They deserved the happiness that they had strived for for so long, and yet it seemed an entity that danced eternally out of reach. A mere ghost of something that could have been.

“It is your job to worry about such things,” Maleficent firmly reminded Aurora. “You rule a flourishing kingdom. You must protect it, Beastie. Being a leader often means having to make difficult decisions for the sake of the many. Know that your father and I will be behind you every step of the way, no matter what it might entail.” She kissed the side of her daughter’s golden head. “We love you.”

“I love you, too. I don’t know what I would do without you,” said Aurora, smiling nervously, though it soon fell. “You look worried. Are you sure things are alright?”

Somehow, the faerie managed a smile in turn - one that did not quite meet her eyes, so it likely appeared more unnerving than anything, a somewhat awkward facade that Diaval would be shaking his head at if he were there. Still dwelling on her conversation with Merin and fresh from the truth of her mate’s cruel abduction, it took all her strength to keep those thoughts from her features.

“Yes,” she responded lightly, flashing her fangs in a carefully composed expression.

Aurora raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

“Maybe you should find father if it puts you at ease. Riordan is probably going to wake any moment now to scream the whole forest down, anyway.” The queen paused, shuffling on her bare feet a bit. “Um, things are going to be fine, aren’t they? With you and father and, well … everything else. I feel awful knowing what happened and being so powerless.”

“I understand.” 

“Tell him not to worry. The letter can go to Ulstead tomorrow. Phillip has invited us all for dinner if you both feel up to it. He promised there won’t be any sort of bird on the menu.”

Maleficent’s smile became even more forced. Dinners around a table were an entirely human affair, and she did at the best of times struggle to remember her manners. It always seemed important to Aurora, however, to have both sides of her family together, whether to drink and dine or simply to coexist in peace. It was getting easier, albeit slowly, not that she would ever admit to actually liking Phillip and his kind-hearted father, John. Aurora was one thing - any other human at all was quite another.

“That sounds wonderful,” she responded with all the false enthusiasm she could possibly muster. “Perchance, could they keep the cat locked outside for the duration? It spends all its wretched time trying to devour your father and any fairies that come with us.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Goodnight, mother.” Gently pulling Maleficent’s head down, Aurora kissed her forehead and then turned to make for her grove of willows, briefly stopping to wave. 

Gazing after her a moment longer, the faerie finally allowed her placating smile to fall. Her worry was forging itself as anger the longer she remained, her various frustrations seeking a way out of her in the form of magic. A dinner in a human kingdom was the last thing she felt like attending, but she did love her daughter, and it was always love that trumped her innermost concerns.

Though the people of Ulstead had long since opened their doors and their hearts to the Moorfolk, Maleficent could not help but always be suspicious. She had seen the greed and envy of mankind. She could not forget the way they had looked at her when they believed Ingrith’s tale of wickedness to be true, and she could not forget how a man had deformed her for his own gain, how a queen had murdered innocent fairies in cold blood. She could not forget that no matter how often she and Diaval dined in the city, there would always be the lingering, frightened glances. There would always be mistrust in the shadow of the kingdoms’ union, because that was the way of men.

Was it mere paranoia? Perhaps. Maleficent knew, however, no matter how little she wanted to acknowledge it, that there were other kingdoms out there which did not have the same understanding of the Moorfolk that Ulstead and Wickpon did. She knew it was Aurora’s intention to send the Royal Envoy to make friends with those kingdoms once Winter had passed. The Royal Envoy, trusted so for his affable, wise, and level-headed nature, was also her mate, and she loathed to send him anywhere the magical and strange were still looked upon with contempt.

She closed her eyes and took a calming breath. She was overthinking it. She was needlessly suspicious. Aurora did not deserve trouble - none of them did. Peace was the ultimate goal of the kingdoms’ union and Maleficent would not be the one to spoil such a wonderful allegiance.

Focusing on Diaval, who was still floundering somewhere at the very edges of her senses, she opened her great wings and took off into the starlit skies to find him. As Wickpon was in a direction north-west of the Woodland Castle, she headed westwards over the Forest of Dreams, a place that became darker and gloomier the deeper one ventured into it. Colourful sprites of all kinds fluttered over the forest canopy as they sought their nests for the night. The trees gradually darkened, their ancient masses becoming gnarled and twisted and strangled by deep brambles. Maleficent had a particular liking for this part of the forest and could never understand why everybody else avoided it as best they could.

She finally located her mate somewhere near the Dark Pond, a perfectly round pool of still, black waters. Landing at its edge, she moved off into the gloomy wilds and found Diaval in the form of a pair of legs sticking out of a stretch of brambles.

Maleficent almost laughed. Almost. 

The shapeshifter was cursing extravagantly as he tried to free himself from the clutches of the thick tangle of thorns. For his efforts, he was only sinking deeper into them, the poor thing struggling upside-down and evidently displeased with his current situation.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” said Maleficent, announcing her presence. “How on earth did you end up in there?”

“Oh, thank the gods! Maleficent!” The struggling of Diaval’s legs immediately ceased.

Head tilting curiously, the faerie wiggled her fingers and sent her golden magic into the wall of brambles, causing the section trapping her mate to unwind and recede back like a ball of angry serpents. Diaval complained with vigour during that part, though was swiftly silenced when he landed face-first in the dirt below and thudded down onto his front. 

“You did not change shape,” Maleficent observed flatly, displeased as she considered what it meant. “What happened? Did you get stuck in the shape of a man mid-flight and come falling through the trees?”

Diaval slowly stood up and brushed himself free of leaves and thick cobwebs. His appearance certainly suggested that her observation was true; his clothes were torn and he was covered in bumps and grazes. However, he shrugged and offered something of a sheepish expression, moving his hands to his hips in that way he did when getting ready to defend himself.

“Funny. It’s funny you should say that. It’s nothin’, though, really. I wasn’t flying that high, just in case.”

Maleficent stared wordlessly at him, feeling her ire rising. It must have shown plainly on her face, for Diaval smiled nervously in response and then reached into his coat pocket to retrieve a sealed letter. 

“Good news, though: I caught this before the wind took it. Strangest thing happened while I was up there. I was just cruising along and then this owl came out of nowhere and landed on my back. Have you ever known an owl to hunt ravens? Luckily I -“

“You need to be more careful,” hissed Maleficent, so vexed by what she had heard that green magic threatened between her fingers. Storming forth, she snatched the letter right out of his hand and shoved it into the elaborate folds of her dress. “What if you had transformed over the sea? You would have drowned.”

“Ah, well, maybe, but … the glass is half full, like always. I didn’t.”

“No. But you _are_ late. You were supposed to relay your trip to Aurora at sunset and I find you sticking bottom-first out off a bush.”

“Oh,” Diaval managed, attempting another smile as he took an anxious step back. “Thought you might enjoy the view?”

She could have easily throttled him. The temptation was there, and she raised her hands in preparation to grab the front of his shirt, but instead she clenched them into fists and made a noise of such frustration that Diaval took another neat step away. She would never be cruel enough to lay her hands upon him in such a way, and the truth was that her anger was born of enormous concern.

“She was worried sick about you! As was I!” She thundered, glaring. “Take this more seriously! How am I supposed to trust you to fly anywhere when you could come toppling out of the sky at any moment? You need to learn how to control your shapeshifting if you are to travel the dangerous roads to other kingdoms!”

Diaval backed down at that. His big, black eyes were fully despondent as he beheld her in silence, his expression so heartbreaking that anybody else might have stopped and fawned over him, instead. It was a neat little trick of his when he was at the receiving end of Maleficent’s rage, and though it tugged at her heartstrings, she had long since become wise to it. If not for the sincere regret she could see plainly in his expressive face, she might have lost her temper entirely. 

Instead, she turned and stormed back into the trees, sweeping through the undergrowth until the Dark Pond came into view. Emerging into that lugubrious and quiet clearing, she stopped there on the greyed, dying grass and heard Diaval fumble clumsily along behind her.

The bold creature dared approach her from the rear and even had the audacity to bring his arms around her waist. In another time, Maleficent would not have hesitated to shove him away with her wings, but despite her rage and the fear she felt on his behalf, she could not help but sink back against his warm, solid form and place her hands over his folded wrists. As her heart beat with pain, it did so alongside a love so potent that it melted her from within, and there she was ensnared in the safety of her mate’s arms.

Their heads touched together as they looked upon the dark pool ahead. Save for a few bats flying quietly about the trees, they were entirely alone. Maleficent found great comfort in it. 

“Don’t be angry,” Diaval beseeched by her ear, his scratchy, accented voice like music that brightened their dreary surroundings. “I stayed as close to the mainland as I could while flying the Blazing Sea. It’s a long way around. That’s why I’m late. And then the dive into the Forest of Dreams, er … I’m sorry to have caused you both to worry. Was Aurora very cross?”

“She understands that such a journey may have been difficult. She’ll see you tomorrow. We’ve been invited for dinner at Ulstead again.”

“You sound thrilled by the prospect, my menacing rose.”

“Charm me all you like. I shan’t enjoy your company tonight.”

“Not even a little bit?” There was a pout in his voice, a suggestion of poorly timed humour, and he was very lucky indeed that the fierce Guardian of the Moors happened to love him dearly. Otherwise, his words might have wrought him a miserable fate. 

“I hate you. Cursed bird,” Maleficent muttered, though tilted her head in a suggestive manner and exposed the pale, elegant length of her neck. Her breath caught when Diaval quickly took the bait and moved a few gentle and entirely reverent kisses over her skin. “I went to all the trouble of bringing you a gift, and then I find you upside down in a bush cursing like a sailor.”

“A gift?” Diaval murmured between kisses.

With a haughty air, Maleficent reached into the bosom of her dress and produced a dazzling necklace of diamonds. Still annoyed but certainly more charmed than she let on, she held the necklace between her fingers and dangled it teasingly just out of the raven’s reach. As expected, his attentions ceased and the movements of his head followed the jewellery when she swung it from side to side. 

“I thought to bring you the most beautiful thing in all the lands,” she said, and then sighed in dramatic fashion. “I could not decide between all the beautiful things I found, so I brought several of them with me. If only you were more well behaved, I might have invited you to indulge in a little treasure hunt.”

Turning in Diaval’s arms, she stared at him and then parted away, fastening the diamond necklace around her neck. It seemed to take him a moment to figure out just what she was implying. His dark eyes were fixed on the necklace that now glittered atop her breastbone, and then his brow twitched in realisation, his head tilting as his gaze fell slowly down over the length of her dress. His throat bobbed in a gulp. 

Maleficent’s anger receded like a high tide, allowing the exposure of the soft, round stones underneath - relief and affection and even a playfulness that bloomed in his presence. It should have annoyed her further how the change in the season affected her mood and instincts so; there were things to be talked about, problems to solve, but something inside her revelled to be alone with her beloved mate. After all, he had done his best to bring himself home to her in one piece.

Her fingers ran daintily over the diamonds. Diaval licked his dry lips and managed to pull his gaze away from the necklace, looking at her with coveting. 

“Tell me, now, is there a lady in Ulstead who is inexplicably missin’ some very expensive jewellery?” He asked weakly.

Maleficent allowed the smallest of smirks. “Dear me, no.”

“I see. I’ve just never seen jewels that refined in the Moors, you know.” Drifting forwards, Diaval put his hands on her shoulders, though could not help but to stroke at the silver chain now decorating her neck. “I already know the most beautiful thing in all the lands. She’s a faerie.”

“Hm. Do _I_ know her?”

“Maybe. She comes to tell people off with jewels hidden in her dress.”

“I should do more than tell you off for not taking matters seriously earlier.” Her stare was hard, though only for a moment more. Raising a hand, Maleficent touched it against Diaval’s chest and sent in her golden, healing magic, ridding him of the shallow grazes. Then, she bit her lip and moved in to embrace him, moving her hands up near his shoulders.

It was perhaps a mistake, though not one she was quick to rectify. The longer she held him, the more she became aware of a disarming scent that demanded her attention. It was there on his neck and clothes, the smell of soil and blood, feathers and pine, a mixture pulled fresh from the wild that served to excite her. His scent was always there, always pleasant, but she recalled how much more appealing it became at this time of year. 

It couldn’t hurt to try Merin’s advice. Could it? Diaval seemed to be in a receptive sort of mood given the attention he continued to lavish upon her neck, successfully courted and intrigued by the jewels she had brought with her. 

“Don’t think you are not still in trouble,” Maleficent just about managed, breathless in wake of the tender ministrations about the sensitive spots of her throat. Her wings fluttered in response to the warm excitement forming low in her belly, the scent of her freshly preened and velvet feathers meant to excite in turn, and then she brushed the edge of one right along Diaval’s cheek just to remind him how much he enjoyed the feel of them. 

In playful form, she stepped away again and smiled, positioning her wings just so. They glittered in the starlight as much as the Dark Pond did, sleek and shiny and beautiful. 

And containing one of the mysterious jewels, apparently. It slipped out from the bend of her wing in the shape of a garnet ring. Diaval looked down at it in a mixture of amusement and further intrigue, his own jewel-like eyes wonderfully alight with their little game. 

“Oops,” the faerie said, raising an eyebrow. “There’s one. We can make an agreement if it pleases you. If you find every last one, I’ll return them to the owner.”

“And to find them I have to undress you. Right here?”

“Are you in the mood to go flying, darling?”

“No,” Diaval blurted quickly, and he was behind her in an instant, working on the ribbons on the back of her bodice. “Don’t use magic. Let me.”

His fingers were remarkably deft. Maleficent laughed lightly at their eagerness. He was careful, too, and thorough as he unwrapped her from the bottle-green garment, searching for the promised jewellery hidden underneath. 

Every piece he found he placed meticulously upon her, whether it was ring or bracelet. Soon enough, she wore not her dress or her crown but only the glittering jewels, the necklace of diamonds pride of place there on her bare breast. What was playful searching became sweet caresses, his rough, wonderful hands moving about her as though she were a fine work of art. She pulled him into the maw of the shadowy woods and pressed him against the hard trunk of a tree. There, she kissed him with all she had, all of her anger and passion, and all of her love. 

His hands left fire everywhere they touched. Maleficent was riled, hungry for more. She had already opened his shirt, and her palms roved the broad expanse of his back as she became increasingly aware of the strength beneath it.

“Diaval,” she gasped against his lips at a brief pause. Any reservations were long gone. By then, the excitement that had pooled in her belly felt to burn across her entire body, and her thoughts were so steeped in pent up desire that she could barely think about anything else. 

“Maybe we should try again,” Diaval suggested, similarly affected given the lovely blush to his cheeks and the heady, wild want in his eyes. He was careful to restrain himself, however, always gentle no matter the sheer need behind his touch. Fingers sank into his hair and he was willingly pulled down to the ground, though he grabbed Maleficent’s waist before she could roll him over. “Sorry to be forward, but - c’mere.”

Maleficent laughed again and turned herself towards the tree, keeping her wings open and poised. Peering over her shoulder at Diaval, she found him roughly yanking at his belt with more concentration than the act truly deserved. 

“We can only play, sweetheart. It’s the turn of Autumn,” she warned him, eagerly watching him struggle with his belt. 

“Meanin’?” He answered with a touch of impatience, his gaze moving hungrily down the long line of her back.

“It means there is a higher chance of a baby if I let you have your wicked way. It’s the season of the forest fae.”

Watching him intently, she observed his change of expression. The very idea seemed to pull him out of the moment entirely, much to her dismay, though he did not move from his kneeling position behind her, apparently at a loss for words. Expecting that he was horrified, Maleficent cursed her untimely attempts to ease her mate into the intimacies that they both desired and wondered why she had ever thought it would be a good idea on that night of all nights. 

Looking away, she turned her back to the tree, suddenly feeling exposed and even embarrassed, which only served to infuriate her further. Why had she led him on knowing full well that their bodies could not unite for at least a few more days? Surely she could have had the patience to wait that long given the length of time they had gone dancing with uncertainty about the need they shared but failed to express.

“Maleficent?” Diaval attempted, abandoning his belt in favour of sitting down beside her, his eyes wide with questioning. “What’s wrong?”

She looked at him, and her heart swelled with love, enabling her to momentarily forget the anger she felt at herself. Reaching over, she held his cheek in her hand and leaned in to kiss him far more chastely than before.

“Nothing.” 

Laughing again, the faerie pounced and manoeuvred him down onto his back so that she could sit across his thighs. Her wings were spread, hovering open in the way of a bird of prey on the hunt, though her actions now were not only born of desire but also an attempt to distract him from the brief moment of vulnerability which she would have preferred to have never happened at all. 

He stared up at her, wordless admiration in his features. His hands moved to touch any part of her bare form that he could reach. Maleficent dipped down and pressed soft kisses to his chest and abdomen, slowly making her way downwards and reaching to untie his trousers.

He caught her hands in his before she could finish. Impatient, she glanced up at him from near his belly and found him flushed, an expression akin to worry there halting her movements. 

“Darling,” she breathed, moving to shift forwards onto his waist. She watched his eyes flutter closed, and she smiled. “I will make you feel wonderful. I swear it. There are other things that we can do.”

Diaval’s brow creased as she purposefully shifted atop him again, a shaky breath escaping his pale lips. Despite how he seemed to enjoy it, however, he reached to hold her hips fast and gazed up at her with the wretched countenance of a kicked puppy. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked again, struggling up into a seated position. Stained with dirt and wearing a fetching array of twigs and leaves in his hair, he brought his arms around Maleficent’s waist and moved a few kisses across her chest. “I can see it in you, ya know.”

“I said that nothing is wrong. Are you listening?”

“I’m listenin’.” 

They stared at each other. 

The words were there on the tip of Maleficent’s tongue, but she could not speak them. It made her increasingly frustrated, even more so than the problem being addressed in the first place. Seeing that he was trying to read her expression, she kept it as still as still as she possibly could, though her jaw tensed when she realised that they were well and truly interrupted; Diaval did not seem ready to back down.

“I’m listenin’,” he repeated in that bird-like way of his. “Tell me.” 

“No, Diaval. I’m throwing myself at you, here. Let your attention return to where it’s wanted.”

The moment the words passed her lips, she regretted them. She saw the moment that he acknowledged them - his face fell, and then his own frustration became more than apparent, brimming in his eyes in a rare anger. She could see the wheels in his head turning, likely trying to come up with a witty retort or argument that would see them begin bickering again like a pair of hens and taking them out of the moment entirely. 

“No. It’s cold,” was all he managed, and somehow it felt so much worse than his usual comebacks. It felt to be fed by an uncharacteristic iciness.

“Cold?” Maleficent bit back, both surprised and annoyed. “You’re the one still wearing clothes.”

“Why won’t you tell me what’s botherin’ you?”

“Oh, you’re just making a fuss over nothing. If you don’t want to carry on, then say so.”

“I …” Diaval’s gaze hardened. His flush was one of embarrassment, now, creeping down his neck. “That isn’t - I’m tryin’, Maleficent! It just seemed as though something’s on your mind. If you’d slow down for five seconds -“

“Slow down?” It was Maleficent’s turn to feel embarrassment, then. With a hiss, she stood up out of her mate’s lap and curled her dark wings around herself, suddenly feeling the chill of the air now that her excitement was stifled. Inwardly ashamed by the silly argument, she strode out from the trees and seized her dress from the ground to magic it back onto her body. She pretended that she could not feel the pleasured streaks across her skin where Diaval had touched her. “Nothing is wrong with me, Diaval. I could not possibly go slower. You’re the one that refuses to talk about everything bothering you, no matter how much it hurts you or the people you love.”

The words were colder than the Autumn air. They left a stunned silence in their wake. Hastily torn out of their passionate venture, there was a silence as they both came to terms with the unfortunate ending to what had started off so well. Around them, the dark, brooding woods watched their frustrations begin to unfold, the creaking of the branches and even the wind seeming to quieten into uncomfortable silence.

Diaval stared at her from the trees, clearly wounded by the faerie’s truth.

“You can’t just turn it back on me,” he said, not sounding quite as furious as he perhaps wanted to. “How can I be hurting anyone?! Explain that to me, Maleficent, because I don’t understand.”

“Because you are not trying!”

“I’m not -” Diaval stopped, then laughed out of sheer disbelief. “What do you think that was back there, then? All I’m doin’ is trying! How can that be hurting you?”

“I don’t care how long it takes, you fool. I care about how every moment of it reminds you of her. I care about how it hurts you to remember it. Do you think I do not understand why you struggle? Every night you dream fitfully and so I use magic to put you in deep slumbers, no closer to knowing what more I can do to help. You are unwilling to admit that you live in fear, and you do nothing to help yourself. It will be the end of you if you let it. Do you have any idea what that would do to your family?”

Diaval gaped at her. Quickly looking away, he hurried to do up his belt and shirt, near enough hidden there in the dark shadows of the trees. If it was not for his pale skin and the angry flush consuming it, he might have been able to disappear into the wilds entirely.

“You’re b-blastin’ things out of proportion,” he muttered, his face pinched with poorly concealed upset. 

“It’s blowing, Diaval. _Blowing_ things out of proportion.”

“Well, I don’t know! And you’re wrong, Maleficent. I’m not struggling with what happened. I’d just rather not think about it, if it pleases you. Maybe I could forget about it if people stopped bringing it up!”

“That is not how it works,” the faerie snapped insistently. “If you talked to me, you would know that.”

Moving out from the trees, Diaval looked at her with an anger that did not suit him. All the warmth and sweetness that came naturally to his eyes seemed to have been drained away to leave pools as dark and empty as the pond nearby, and the cold light of the Moon was reflected there within them as white as snow. It was short-lived. Maleficent felt her resolve falter as he approached, and she felt the urge to fly away from the argument. However, the thought filled her with an immense guilt; she could not leave him alone with the things she had brought up. 

“I know what you wanted to say,” Diaval said tersely, stopping a small distance away. His voice was thick and coarse with emotion. “The moment you said about the risk of having a baby, somethin’ changed. There’s something you want that I haven’t been able to give you. Am I right?”

Stunned, the faerie was unable to answer. She could not even think to accept or deny his words, so surprised was she that he had caught on so quickly. Her anger was again swift to subside in favour of other things - this time a devastation that brought shameful tears to her eyes and a lump to her throat, for she could see that Diaval was similarly affected. He was holding himself, his pale features crumpling with dismay as her silence confirmed his thoughts.

“You’ve denied your own happiness to protect me,” the raven continued, bowing his head. “It’s fine. I can do it. I just need a minute, that’s all.”

“No,” Maleficent uttered, her tone softening. “Not now. Not yet.”

“You want a baby,” croaked Diaval. “I want that for us, too, but I can’t even -” He closed his eyes, and the tears that had been brimming finally spilt down over his cheeks. It seemed that months and months of frustration was finally releasing itself from the cage of his heart, and he gradually succumbed to it, turning away in an attempt to hide the sorrow tearing through him. “I can’t even … Y-you’re right, Maleficent. I dread even fallin’ asleep in case I wake up and I’m there again. How silly is that? I know it’s over, but it feels like she’s around every corner. ‘N I know I’ve been distracted. I know I’m lettin’ you and Aurora down. It was so long ago but it feels like it was … just …”

“Yesterday,” Maleficent whispered with understanding. She paused to dab at the inner corner of her eye, guilt flooding in to wash away the anger that had been so dominant moments ago. It pained her to hear his confession. It reminded her all too well of everything she had felt those years ago and how long it had taken to feel like her true self. If not for the kindness and patience of Aurora and Diaval, where would she be now? 

It pained her all the more to have seen that very same anger and hurt in the eyes of one she loved dearly, a person who deserved nothing but good tidings but instead had suffered the vicious magic and claws of a true evil. Somewhere along the way, they had forgotten the power of communication and instead resorted to battling their tempers like a pair of squabbling pixies. 

It wasn’t right. None of this was. 

Maleficent took a breath. She summoned the strength necessary to put down her pride. Stepping slowly towards Diaval, she placed her cool hand on his heated cheek and then leaned in to brush her nose against his. It was a silent offer of an impasse and an expression of love, for which she understood he perhaps needed a gentle reminder.

“Oh, my angel. You are not letting anybody down,” she tried to reassure him.

Comforting people was far from being Maleficent’s strong suit. She had simply spent far too long mistrusting every individual that crossed her path and forming barriers to protect herself from the pain they would inevitably cause. Her instinct was to stay away from an upset person because deep down she was frightened of making things worse, but when it came to those she loved … staying away was not an option. They had given her so much strength, and she realised not too long ago the importance of paying it back when it was due. 

And so when something in Diaval seemed to break, she took him into her arms and held him tightly as his body shook with sudden, heavy sobs. 

Never had she witnessed such an outpouring of emotion from him. Released from its pen, despair gushed from him in such torrents that Maleficent found herself affected in turn, both out of empathy and of reluctant consideration of everything that had brought him such sadness in the first place. 

There was once a time that Maleficent had considered herself the truest evil in lands all around. As time passed, she realised just how wrong she was. She was not evil because her enormous capacity for love simply would not allow it. It was love that had saved Aurora from her curse and it was love that had healed Maleficent’s old wounds in acceptance of herself and those around her. 

But Wynne, another faerie of enormous magical potential, was the true portrait of wickedness. She who had formed an obsession with men that were not able to defend themselves against her. She who had pushed innocents into early graves with a Winter that allowed no food to grow. She who had brought such immeasurable pain to Diaval that it was a wonder he had gone so long allowing the memories to fester within him like rotting fruit. Maleficent still dreamed of tearing the witch limb from limb for what she had done. 

Even in death, Wynne still committed the most unforgivable crimes.

Not letting go of her mate for a moment, Maleficent brought him down to the ground and sat with him there beside the Dark Pond. His head was buried in her shoulder, and she took the opportunity to stroke the back of his neck in that way he liked, running her claws lightly up into his hair and down again. It was torture to see her love, a man usually so resilient, reduced to weeping in wake of phantom sensations and memories that rightfully never should have existed. 

It seemed an age before he began to calm down, but before much more progress could be made, a familiar wind began to blow in from between the gnarled trees. Maleficent knew well enough what was about to occur, and so did poor Diaval, who made a noise of utter bitterness and clawed at the damp soil as a forced transformation took hold. 

He pulled away from her, shaking his head and groaning like a beast of the woods, and when the shadows finally departed his body, they revealed the shape of a stag as black as night with raven feathers interspersed within his mane. The creature righted himself onto his feet with violent jolts of his legs and he seemed just about ready to bolt off into the Forest of Dreams. Before he could, Maleficent quickly stood and took hold of the dangerous pair of antlers, gazing into the black, panicked eyes of the beast that heaved through his nose in rage. 

“It’s all right,” she said firmly, gripping his enormous antlers with all her strength even as he tried to roughly wrangle his way out of her grip. The lack of care in his actions concerned her greatly. Swallowing back her sorrow, she knelt and forced his head down with her, trying to find any sign of her mate there in the animal’s bulging eyes. “Diaval?”

The stag bellowed low in his throat and pawed threateningly at the earth. After another minute or so of silent wrangling, he finally gave up and dropped his great body down onto the soil. There, he rested his soft jaw against Maleficent’s knee and gazed up at her with something far more familiar than what had occupied him moments ago - a true, sweet kindness. Though he could not speak with words, he groaned quietly and peered up at her in a manner that could only be described as apologetic. 

“There you are,” Maleficent muttered, scratching her fingers in the soft fur between his antlers. “Don’t frighten me like that. Are you stuck again?”

Diaval huffed in confirmation. Shifting off her knees, Maleficent invited his head fully onto her lap and ran her hand soothingly down his solid neck.

“Forgive me,” the faerie continued, gazing out across the black water of the Dark Pond. “Simply being with you brings me such happiness, darling. It does not matter whether we lie together or not. I fear I got a little over excited to see you.”

Diaval grumbled and shook his head. What it meant, Maleficent was not sure. Smiling, she ran her fingers down the length of his muzzle and to the vestigial black beak there.

“We must never forget how loved we are, must we? Otherwise, the world would seem a very dark and lonely place. Let us be your light in those dark places, love, just as you and Aurora have served as mine. I will walk no road that does not bear you upon it.”

The deer’s stare was as loving as it was morose. As though hypnotised by her, he could not seem to look away. The night was there in the onyx gaze, stars glittering within them, but most dominant was the Moon itself whose cold light seemed to want to occupy as much space as it could, turning all the life there into something disarmingly blank. 

For some time, neither of them moved. Within that dark pocket of the Forest of Dreams, a deep love fed a little life into the dying grass and the crooked trees, that of a faerie and a raven who could see nothing else there but each other.

In the sky, the stars shone down upon them, not one of those billions of twinkling lights suspecting that their vision of the Moors was soon to be clouded. 


	2. Strangers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thanks everyone for following me over here to the beginning of another adventure! I wrote so much for this chapter I had to bump this fic up to three chapters - which should hopefully be followed by another longer fic! Consider this one a bridge, if you will.
> 
> Just a note I wanted to throw in: the Old Language mentioned every now again through the story is actually Irish Gaelic seeing as the Maleficent verse takes a lot of influence from Celtic folklore etc. In this universe, it’s a dead language now spoken only by nature itself, the gods/spirits of old, and a few near ancient practitioners. You’ll find a couple of new words in this chapter, one of which being the name ‘Siobhan’ which is pronounced ‘shiv-on’, the name ‘Orlaith’ which is pronounced ‘Orla’, and the word ‘Breoslaigh’ which is pronounced something like ‘Bross-ley’ I believe!
> 
> Happy reading! Be warned that things get a little bit saucy later on in the chapter, but there is nothing at all explicit. Also, apologies for all the talking going on. The next chapter is going to have a lot more action!

Maleficent was feeling particularly nervous that evening.

She fought to hide it. Family gatherings in Ulstead of all places were hardly something that she thought fondly of, and when the eternally enthusiastic King John invited the Woodland Court to his kingdom, the faerie was horrified to find herself always on the guest list. If not for Aurora, she certainly would have impolitely uninvited herself, taking great pleasure in crossing her own name off the infernal scroll the page boy at the door would greet them with. 

She approached the castle within Aurora’s fairy entourage, already feeling pangs of doubt in her belly. It was only a few years ago that the people carried pitchforks wherever she might appear, and now the Moorfolk were greeted with smiles instead of weapons. The laughter about her did not seem real in its absolute absurdity, but Maleficent was forced to go along with it all for Aurora’s sake. Her daughter really was dreadfully fond of that Phillip boy. It was a good thing, she supposed, considering that they were married. 

Maleficent sort of understood it all a bit better, these days. Love, that is.

Diaval was hooked on her arm that afternoon, not as a servant or something to flaunt, but as what the humans might call a ‘life partner’. As the darkness and mistrust in Maleficent’s heart had faded, a true love and fondness had finally been allowed to fill the vacant space. She had allowed herself that happiness, and Diaval seemed very happy about the matter, too, seemingly too distracted by the hubbub or guarded enough to let anything of the previous night show in his face. 

He beamed from ear to ear, waving at people as they passed through the castle gates. How he knew them, she had no idea. He probably didn’t.

“Let’s make this quick, shall we?” Maleficent said quietly, leaning into him to avoid being heard by nearby pixies. “I have perhaps two smiles left in me today: one more for Aurora and one for the King. Then, I shall find my energy expended, and you’ll escort me away.”

“What’ve you got for me, then? A grimace?” Diaval responded, waving enthusiastically towards a group of watching children who only stared cluelessly back at him in turn.

“If you’re lucky.”

“My loving mate,” the shapeshifter sighed fondly. “I’ll take what I can get.”

“Well, I wore this dress just for you.”

It was a bold choice, to be sure: a black, glittering garment that hung loosely over the faerie’s elegant curves. The back was non-existent. The opening of the front nearly reached her navel, suggestive but tasteful enough for the inane and annoying dinner that they were summoned to. Why not have fun while they were at it? Diaval was the perfect partner for such things, able to enjoy her mischief and also reign it in whenever she was on the verge of venturing too far. People often wrongly assumed that Maleficent was the more well-behaved of the pair - the truth was that she was simply more reserved, though was emerging from that cocoon of safety as the years passed. 

Diaval made obvious attempts not to look at her when she drew attention to her attire, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the castle doors. 

“You’re wicked,” he managed, the rasp to his voice even harsher than usual.

“So they say.”

“I’ve gone this long. I can go the rest of the evenin’ without so much as glancing.”

“An admirable endeavour, to be sure. Have you seen how this dress catches the light, darling? Like millions of diamonds.”

“You’re right. We should get out of here as quickly as we can.”

“And disappoint Aurora? Oh, dear.”

Diaval’s arm tightened around hers in chastising fashion, though he was quick to smile again and keep up pretences, given that they humans seemed to take particular interest in them as they passed. It was hard to miss the pair dressed in all black among the entourage of flowers and rainbow assortment of fairies following on behind. 

“You suggested it! You …” he paused, apparently unable to come up with a passable insult. “Ngh.”

“I changed my mind. I can feel that you’re tense. Perhaps I might torture you a little longer.”

“And not a trace of shame to be found,” Diaval responded musically, though Maleficent could hear a note of despair. “It’s unfair how beautiful you are. Isn’t that enough?”

Maleficent smiled coyly, easily charmed by the way Diaval spoke such words. Watching him, she brought his hand to her lips and pressed a very quick but loving little kiss to his knuckles. It was meant to charm him in turn, but it was also an affectionate gesture made in the hope of comforting any lingering remnants of the night before. That morning, Diaval had made a point not to speak of it at all, as though nothing had happened. 

Aurora had behaved similarly, greeting her father as though he had not missed his meeting with her the night before. If anything she had been overly doting towards him, hugging him repeatedly and reminding him quite sincerely that she loved him, which Maleficent supposed was to be expected, though something she could not pinpoint niggled at the back of her mind and had been since the dawn of the new day. 

What was the right way of things? To pretend that everything was fine? Or to address everything that was wrong and risk hurting people in the process? Maleficent, for one, felt as though she had hurt enough of the people she loved for one lifetime, but perhaps ignoring it all would end up being the more devastating option in the end. 

Clearing her throat, she glanced towards Diaval, though the dangerous things that were on the tip of her tongue went unspoken. Aurora’s entourage was welcomed into Ulstead’s massive castle with a series of blaring trumpets that made Maleficent cringe. The fairies that had joined them dispersed into the castle or into the city to enjoy themselves, and the horses were led away to the stables, leaving Aurora, her parents, and young Riordan alone to find their way into the grand throne room.

Banners depicting Aurora’s silver crest were draped across the marble pillars in her honour. On the massive dining table was a vast array of extravagant foods (and not a single roasted bird to be found). Phillip and John were waiting there, though the two of them appeared strangely concerned about something. 

Phillip drew forwards and greeted Aurora with a kiss, then bent down to pick up their son with a beaming grin. 

“Ah! Little one! What a long journey you’ve had,” he cooed, holding the blonde little boy close. Riordan delighted in his father’s attention, though only briefly - he was quickly intrigued by the colourful assortment of food on the table and reached for it with a hungry gurgle. 

“Good afternoon, all,” King John said with a nervous sort of smile, approaching to kiss Aurora’s forehead and offer a small bow towards Maleficent and Diaval. “Lovely weather. I trust you all travelled well?”

Ah, yes. Small talk. A frequent component of human interaction according to Diaval, who had spent long enough spying on their kind to know such things. 

“Very well, thank you,” Aurora responded happily. “Thank you for inviting us all. We do so love it. Don’t we?” She added, turning with a smile towards her parents behind her. 

Diaval smiled with genuine agreement. Maleficent tried, though was aware she perhaps looked more like she had been offered something she was too polite to refuse. 

“Good, good!” John said, clapping his hands together, though his smile was quick to fall again in another bout of nervousness. “Well, I had hoped that it would just be us here tonight, but … Bit awkward. We had some unexpected guests this morning and they seemed eager to meet the royal family of the Moors. I do hope you’ll pardon the suddenness of it.”

“Guests?” Aurora questioned brightly.

“Yes, well … An envoy from Perceforest decided to turn up. And then, good heavens, another one arrived from Breoslaigh. It was either remarkably good timing or they decided unanimously to show up today.”

“We haven’t heard from either of them in years,” Phillip continued, bouncing Riordan on his chest a little. “Perceforest has kept to itself since Aurora was crowned Queen of the Moors. Breoslaigh hasn’t been in contact since, um … since mother’s incarceration. It was her home kingdom.”

Maleficent bristled at that, immediately set on edge by the presence of strangers. 

It was true enough; the Moors had not heard anything from Perceforest, which sat near its south-western border. Last she had heard, Stefan’s castle had been given to the people and they had established a council to govern the kingdom following Stefan’s death and the departure of Aurora. 

As for Breoslaigh, she knew little of it save that it flanked the Moors’ eastern edge and that it was a kingdom of canyons and dry spells. It was home to Ingrith’s family, though just whether they shared her opinions on the Moorfolk or not was unclear; the only attempt they had ever made to communicate was to send a prince in their desperation for aid, only for the boy to disappear. 

They were two kingdoms that very likely bore ill-will towards the Moors, and that their envoys had suddenly shown up on that day of all days filled Maleficent with both unease and suspicion. She glanced towards Diaval and found him looking thoughtful about the matter. Aurora seemed confused, though she still managed a smile and nodded.

“We would be glad to meet them,” the young queen said, though there was a trace of nervousness to be heard. 

“Yes, well. You might want to be a bit wary. They do like to ask questions. Shall we sit?” John gestured towards the loaded table and then made to sit down at the head of it.

Phillip joined him after placing Riordan into his wooden high chair. Aurora, Maleficent, and Diaval took their places on the other side of the table. It felt as though they had lived this moment before - a gathering disturbed by discomfort, not caused by Ingrith now but the presence of envoys who had invited themselves into Ulstead’s walls. Maleficent sat there and silently stewed on the matter, gaze flitting to the grand, wooden doors when they were opened again.

The two strangers were showed into the throne room by the servants. The pair took their seats opposite the Moors’ family, and there was an awkward silence as they group surveyed each other. Maleficent heard Aurora lightly clear her throat and shuffle slightly in her seat. Diaval was the only one who had started eating, though he was only picking at the skin of his share of the hog.

The envoy of Perceforest, who wore the familiar crest of gold, was a large, bearded man with a ruddy complexion and small blue eyes. Maleficent did not like how he leaned back in his seat as if he owned the place, and certainly did not like the way his eyes moved between them all as though sizing them up. For whatever reason, he wore a sword on his belt.

The envoy of Breoslaigh was a tall, willowy woman with olive skin and black hair that fell to her waist. She wore long robes of a deep red and a sash that boasted an unfamiliar black crest. She sat perfectly still and straight, her dark brown eyes at first settling upon the grand array of food before she dared look at the family before her. 

“This is dear Queen Aurora and her parents, the Guardian and the Envoy of the Moors, Maleficent and Diaval. And the little one is Prince Riordan, my grandson.” King John introduced them with admirable enthusiasm despite the uncertainty clear in his features. Smiling, he then gestured at the strangers sitting across from them. “This is Edmund Hill of Perceforest and Siobhan Mograve of Breoslaigh. Quite the, um, quite the surprise, to be sure, but you are all very welcome here in Ulstead.”

There was another awkward pause. Maleficent did not pull her gaze from the strangers for a moment, not caring if she made them uncomfortable. If there had been warning of their arrival, perhaps she would have been less suspicious. As it was, Siobhan wore the expression of one overcome with a foul stench, and Edmund chose to stare right back at Maleficent in a manner she did not at all like. 

“Your son is lovely, Your Majesty,” Siobhan said to Aurora, breaking the silence, and Maleficent was surprised to hear that her accent matched that of Diaval. It was one not often heard, supposedly only touching the voices of those on the outermost reaches of the kingdoms, or those belonging to families descended from the humans who occupied the Moors thousands of years ago.

“Thank you,” Aurora replied unsurely, though she offered a gracious smile. “He’s in a good mood. I’m sure he’ll be fast asleep in no time. The travelling often wears him out.”

“I’m sure. For what kingdom is he destined to be crowned, then? The Moors, or Ulstead?”

“Well …” Aurora raised her eyebrows. “That’s a decision that will be made later, I’m sure. I would not like to make it for him.” With another pleasant smile, the young queen reached forth and began to pile food onto her plate, then gestured for the others to follow suit. “Please. Let’s enjoy it while it’s warm. Perhaps you might tell us of your kingdoms. I’d love to hear about them.”

“What’s there to tell of Perceforest that you don’t already know?” Said Edmund in a tone so brash that Maleficent glared at him from across the table. “It was your parents’ kingdom, rest their souls. They’d be turning in their graves if they could see the state it’s gotten into. It seems as though we are destined to survive in the cold of Ulstead’s shadow.” The bearded man laughed as though he had just told a joke, unsuccessfully allaying the impact of his words. 

Such passive aggressiveness only served to annoy Maleficent further. Still glaring at the oaf, she watched as he took a big, messy bite out of the roasted hog’s leg. It left his fingers and beard covered in grease and chunks of meat which he was in no clear hurry to remove. 

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Aurora offered as politely as possible. “Has your kingdom fallen on hard times?”

“I’m sure every kingdom outside of Ulstead, Wickpon, and the Moors is feeling unpopular. Not all of us are so lucky with our trade deals, nor do we have family in high places.”

“Um,” Diaval began, leaning forwards a little to try and gain their attention. “Not to sound rude, but we found our way through hard times of our own by pullin’ together. It wasn’t just necessity but true friendship. It’s a matter of workin’ with each other’s strengths, isn’t it?”

The strangers looked at Diaval, apparently unimpressed. Edmund stared at him while taking a generous gulp from his goblet, his greying eyebrows raised. 

“And what kind of fairy are you supposed to be?” 

Everybody had stopped eating, mostly out of discomfort. Maleficent, for one, had not indulged in any of it in the first place, too focused on watching and listening to even bother.

“I’m not a fairy. I’m a raven. Shapeshifter.” Diaval sighed defeatedly, appearing to wish he had not spoken at all. “My name isn’t Diablo. I’m not a demon and I’m definitely not a crow. People always gettin’ these things confused. It’s Diaval.”

“Diablo!” Siobhan exclaimed in apparent recognition. “So you’re the Envoy of the Moors. I thought you dead for the longest time. The tales say that you perished on the walls of the Woodland Castle, turned to stone by a good fairy. It wasn’t until the incident in Wickpon I realised the truth.”

The smugness on their faces was unbearable. Enraged by what she had heard, Maleficent was quick to stand from her chair. She spread her wings behind both Aurora and Diaval, and she glowered at the pair before her, lips curling to show off her sharp, white fangs.

If it was the wrong thing to do, she did not care. She was a faerie and would not abide the silly rules of human engagement. As far as she was concerned, the two envoys were immediately abhorrent and thus deserved to be reminded of just where they were and who they were speaking to. How was it they had even gained passage into the kingdom when they were so blatantly opposed to it?

“Oh, dear,” King John mumbled, reaching for his wine. 

Phillip was pointedly keeping himself turned away, feeding young Riordan (who was fortunate enough to have no idea what was going on).

Aurora and Diaval watched the scene unfold with an anxiety they knew all too well. Meanwhile, Maleficent stared at the envoys for a moment longer, and then she slowly sat herself down again, her eyes positively alight with the green of her destructive power. It was fortunate for the strangers present that they were not alone with the faerie. Otherwise, she might have done something significantly worse than merely intimidate them.

“Be mindful of how you address the Queen,” Maleficent demanded, her tone as cold and powerful as a glacier tearing through mountain. “She is gracious to be so accepting of your sudden arrival. And you shall speak to her _true_ father with the respect that he is due. Your kingdoms would be buried and starving underneath blankets of snow if not for him.”

“So I heard,” Edmund continued, leaning nonchalantly back in his seat without a care in the world. Turning the hog’s leg about in his greasy hand, he took another chunk out of it, nodding towards Diaval with something of a smirk. “Well done. It brings us to the point of our visit.”

“Which is?” Maleficent snapped.

The two envoys glanced at each other.

Siobhan took the lead, then. After drinking elegantly from her wine, she clasped her hands and smiled in a manner that could only be described as offensive.

“Very well. The kingdoms of Breoslaigh and Perceforest have united together in response to your union. It seemed unfair that you three would enjoy each other’s trade and friendships while we were left out in the cold. We have to be able to defend ourselves, you see. It’s becoming increasingly clear just how dangerous this world is becoming.” The woman’s smile fell away as she spoke. Squaring her narrow shoulders, she looked between the three sat before her. “Magical gemstones. Phoenixes. Faeries that can end the world with devastating winters. Ravens that can turn into dragons. Not to mention the thousands and thousands of fairies that could kill a person’s crops or drain their wells with a mere thought. It’s a difficult time to be a human.” She looked at Aurora, then. “Your parents were humans, Your Majesty. _You_ are human. Surely you can see our concerns. You might love these creatures and magical beings, but you cannot deny the threat they pose. Not after what happened with the Moon Witch.”

The mention of the name hung in the air, weighted by the suddenness and the sheer audacity of it. 

Maleficent stared, smiling with rage. In her peripheral vision, she saw Diaval tense and quietly put down his cutlery, so she reached over and put her hand over his, not looking away from the others for an instant. The meaning of their visit was becoming more and more clear: it was their very purpose to make the Moorfolk uncomfortable, to intimidate and to scorn, because that was what fearful humans did. 

“The Moon Witch was not aligned with the Moors,” Aurora took care to remind them, her tone controlled but increasingly angry. “She was banished by her people long ago. Her actions were not a reflection of us. The Moorfolk are peaceful and have no desire to hurt anybody at all. It’s thanks to my mother and father that she was captured and her cruelty put to an end.”

“Your true father is dead thanks to a faerie, Your Majesty,” Edmund fired back, leaning forwards with a gleam in his horrible little eyes. “And this beast almost burned down the entire castle. What of the Dark Fae that attacked Ulstead and killed honest soldiers? Were they a peaceful lot?”

“And what of the human that trapped thousands of innocent fairies in a church and tried to murder them all for no reason other than her own prejudice?!” It was Aurora’s turn to stand up, now. For a small woman in a pink dress and flowers in her hair, she suddenly appeared remarkably intimidating, a wild passion for her cause in her bright eyes. “The Moorfolk long to exist alongside mankind in peace! You refuse to understand us or our land, and you suffer for it time and time again. We want to help you but such a thing must be earned by a basic respect! If you have only come here today to point fingers at the wrong people, then I shall remind you of all the unprovoked crimes your kind have committed against the Moors out of fear or greed. I must insist that you leave and rethink your strategy for whatever it is that you want.”

Despite Aurora’s words, the pair made no move to leave - though they did relent and settle back in their seats, apparently at a loss for what to say.

Good. Maleficent revelled in their discomfort and that Aurora had been the one to inspire it. 

Still holding Diaval’s hand, she gave it a small squeeze and subtly glanced at him. He was still tense, for some reason glaring at Edmund in the most polite way a person could possibly glare, his dark eyes as wide and focused like a bird on the hunt. When Maleficent turned back to the others, she found the bearded man watching her in turn, something so immediately disconcerting and even lecherous about his gaze that she suddenly felt more exposed than she truly was. 

Disgusted, it took all of her willpower to restrain her great power as it threatened to burst from her like a caged beast. 

“So, um, how is the food?” King John asked, though he went unheard.

Even Riordan was bothered by the tension that had swiftly arisen between all present. Grizzling irritatedly around his food, he wouldn’t stop until Phillip took him out of the high chair and settled him on his lap, instead, where the boy surveyed the strangers with an expression of utter confusion. 

“ _What_ is it that you want?” Aurora asked at last, sitting down. Her tone was gentler but no less formidable. “You planned to come here together today and sit in on a family gathering. You are both envoys, no doubt you are going to report back to your superiors what you have heard, but I fear you are yet to ask the question.”

Siobhan clasped her long, elegant hands together and nodded, her gaze flicking constantly between the three of them.

“Queen Orlaith of Breoslaigh would like the assurance that all Dark Fae weapons will be destroyed lest we are all plunged into another disaster.”

“The treasures are being closely guarded by the fae clans,” Maleficent said at once. She fought to keep the cold from her voice, but it was near impossible. “Their power shall only ever be used for the maintenance of nature and its people. To use them for means of war is punishable by exile or death.”

“And what of Perceforest?” Interceded Edmund, who gave no indication he had really been listening. “My kingdom has been abandoned by its true heir. We sit stagnant. There is no such thing as a kingdom without a royal family.”

“I will never rule Perceforest. I do not know the kingdom. How on earth would I be a good fit? King Stefan and Queen Leila sent me away into the forest with fairies for my whole childhood!” Aurora argued, though there was the beginnings of uncertainty in her voice. “It was there I found my true family, and through them did I find my home. I gave the castle of Perceforest to the people after Stefan’s death. A kingdom does not always need a king or a queen, it only needs a wise and just authority, which can surely be found with the council you formed.”

The two envoys looked at each other. What the look meant was not clear. Maleficent became focused on Siobhan in particular, finding her the more amicable but more mysterious of the pair. She wondered if the long red robes and the many rings on her fingers meant that she had royal blood, or perhaps was a highly respected figure among her people. Much like Breoslaigh itself, it seemed that the woman was content to remain something of an enigma. 

Maleficent said, “We bear neither of your kingdoms ill will. So long as you do not seek to harm the Moors or our aligned kingdoms, we shall leave you alone. Peace is the way of our kind.”

Siobhan looked away. Edmund, meanwhile, was staring at the faerie again in a manner clearly meant for his own pleasure given that he refused to meet her eyes and instead took unashamed interest in the steep opening of her glittering dress. Maleficent was momentarily too surprised by his boldness to acknowledge her own anger, raising her eyebrows in genuine shock and perplexity. Surely the man knew what he was doing?

Surprisingly, it was not the faerie herself who acknowledged the licentious behaviour - she did not get the chance to, and it was fortunate for everybody present that such was the case. It surely would have left quite the mess, given the opportunity. She had imagined holding the man’s face right into the grand fireplace until there was no chance of him looking at another woman in such a way again.

No, Diaval was the one to react. His hand was taut beneath hers, his claws threatening to dig into the fine wood of the dining table, and the expression he wore was one she was sure she had never seen on him. It was a smile, deceivingly pleasant, but Maleficent could see a cold wickedness behind it, something that served to both unnerve and thrill her all at once. 

“It’s time for you to leave,” the shapeshifter said politely, though his voice was oddly stilted. “You’ve said your words and now you have your answers.”

“Who asked you?” Edmund drawled with amusement, eyeing the other man with derision. “Bird? What’s next? Asking a pigeon its opinion on politics?”

“I’m sure it would be safer,” Diaval responded with that vacuous smile. When he stood, he briefly touched Maleficent’s bare shoulder, perhaps sensing her immense ire. “C’mon, then. Envoy to envoy, I think the nobles should be left to eat their family dinner in peace. Maybe you might send a letter requesting an audience, next time? Unless, of course, it was your intention to be inflammatory, which has been duly noted by yours truly, and ravens do like to mimic sounds and behaviours they’ve witnessed.”

“Big words for a raven.” Edmund dropped his chunk of meat and wiped his greasy hands on a nearby napkin, then stood up, soon followed by Siobhan.

“That’s nothin’. They get bigger. I even know how to read.” Diaval informed them with a wink. “D’you know what injudicious means? It’s one of my favourites. No?”

The pair stared at him, clearly infuriated but wary. When Diaval moved away from the table and politely gestured towards the door, they regarded him with caution, looking at the blackened claws on his fingers and the endless pools of his inhuman eyes. It must have been strange and perhaps shameful to them being spoken to in such a way by what they considered a mere beast, and Diaval seemed more than aware of it, his manner of speech and his smiles of a purposefully unsettling nature. 

He was enraged. Maleficent could see it in the lines of his back. Otherwise, there would have been no chance of him butting heads with strangers; her mate had always been the more peaceable one and rarely took part in such conversations unless his advice was requested. Despite his rage, he was in fact doing the wisest thing by removing the envoys from the situation entirely, for their attempts to anger Maleficent had been becoming increasingly successful. 

Then, they would have had an excuse for conflict. 

The servants approached with Edmund’s things. When he made for the door, Diaval followed and stopped him just before he could leave, leaning in to him under the pretence he was helping with the brooch of his cloak. Only Maleficent with her sharp hearing could make sense of what he muttered to Edmund, then.

“I say this to you as another man-shaped being. I’m sure you’ll understand, but look at either of ‘em like that again and I’ll peck your eyeballs out of your skull.”

Diaval smiled again, brushed off Edmund’s cloak and then sent him on his way with an amicable pat on the arm. The bearded man looked over his shoulder and glared at him with such contempt that it was palpable, but Diaval merely waved in response and took Siobhan’s dark cloak from a very confused servant standing nearby.

Maleficent could hardly believe what she was seeing. As much as she did not want to find thrill in it, given the danger the two strangers posed, there was a part of her enjoying every second of her mate’s rebuttal. Keeping herself poised in an attempt to hide it, she glanced down at her food with a sigh and raised her eyebrows in response to all that had transpired.

In gentlemanly fashion, Diaval placed Siobhan’s cloak around her shoulders and then wandered back to the front of her.

“Are you travellin’ alone with him?” He asked quietly, a touch of concern to be heard there among his barely restrained aggravation. “I’m sure the king would lend you a room if he had any reason to be concerned.”

The woman seemed surprised, albeit briefly. She quickly recovered and narrowed her eyes with suspicion, drawing her cloak in around herself. Staring at Diaval, she just smiled and shook her head in rejection of his thinly veiled offer.

“It might surprise you to learn that I can look after myself. I am of Breoslaigh’s Red Druids. Any man that touches me will find himself burnt.” Her dark lips lifted in a sneer, then. Though her voice lowered, Maleficent could still hear her. “Do not patronise me, creature. Perhaps the rumours are exaggerated, perhaps not, but weren't you the one defiled by a witch?”

Any shred of patience that Maleficent might have had left was swiftly vanquished.

To the surprise of everyone present, the faerie stood and spread her wings so violently that her chair was thrown backwards to the ground. The tempest of her rage had anchored itself within her heart and from there it expelled itself in the form of her great, dark power, blasting the throne room doors wide open and knocking the hats off the heads of all the servants. 

Moving away from the table, she stood between her family and the stranger, her dark wings spread wide. The poisonous green of her destructive magic filled her eyes, so much so that she could barely even see, the force of her anger so great that it was a wonder the robe-clad envoy was yet unscathed. Deep down, beyond the storm of her rage, Maleficent knew that she could not react with violence. She had learnt from such things. 

She would not start a war, no matter how much the humans tried to push her buttons. 

Hissing through her teeth, the faerie slowly pulled her wings and her burning power back into her body.

The many candles in the room relit themselves. Maleficent’s chair righted itself up against the table. What she could not fix was the impact of Siobhan’s words.

Diaval was shame-faced. Before the stunned gaze of the other envoy, he transformed into a raven and squawked at her before flying out of the hall and into the corridors beyond. Siobhan stared blankly at the now vacant space before her, then slowly turned to meet Maleficent’s accusing gaze. 

“Get out,” the faerie demanded callously. “ _Now._ ”

The woman did just that. With one last look at the dining table beyond, she turned and moved swiftly out of the throne room.

That the strangers were gone did not seem to make anything better. The lasting impact of their questions and accusations lingered on in the minds of the royal family, who were thus forced to question themselves in wake of it all. Was this something that might have been prevented if only a thought had been spared for the other kingdoms that bordered the Moors? Had it been their responsibility, or were the others simply looking for an excuse to start a new conflict? What would come of the visit, now?

King John ran a hand down the length of his face, shocked by the turn of events. 

“Good lord. I must apologise for allowing them to join us today.”

“They would have found a way to intrude eventually,” was Aurora’s response. “That was what they wanted. My intention was to send Diaval to their kingdoms once the Winter had passed to extend a hand of friendship, but maybe I waited too long. What did she say to him, mother?”

Maleficent’s lips pursed. She did not turn, still glaring at the great doors through which the strangers had departed. 

“He is not going,” she said flatly, ignoring Aurora’s question entirely. Only then did she begin to make her way back to the table. Her hands were clenched at her sides. “Not now they have made their opinions of Moorfolk clear. If they seek dispute over friendship, they can continue to fester for all I care.”

“ _I_ care!” Aurora insisted, rising to meet her mother at the end of the table. “If their people are suffering -“

“Nobody is going to those kingdoms!”

“He won’t be alone, I’ll send him with … with the pixies! He’s the best one to be smoothing things over, mother, you know that!”

“Your father is in no state to be going anywhere!” Maleficent snapped. “Certainly not to be keeping the likes of those humans happy. Their circumstances are not our fault, nor our concern!”

Aurora steeled herself. Maleficent knew that stubborn expression very well.

“To ignore their plight because of a pair of rude envoys is cruelty,” the queen argued back.

“They are a reflection of their kingdoms. That is why we chose Diaval as our own envoy. He will _not_ be going to shake hands with their rulers. Hurting him would be an act of war which could well be what they are after, Aurora.”

“Mother,” her daughter said slowly. Cautiously, as though bracing herself for a storm. Maleficent was confused to see sympathy in the features of the young woman. “If this erupts, it could end in disaster. We will _all_ suffer for it. It’s bigger than whatever is going on between you two. Bigger even than the Moon Witch and the things she did. I love you both dearly, but I need to do what is right for everyone.”

A cold feeling flooded the faerie upon hearing those words. Deep down, she knew well enough that her daughter was trying to consider everybody involved because of the goodness of her heart. She could not bear the thought of innocents suffering. Maleficent, however, was older and far more jaded with the deceptions of mankind. 

She wished Diaval was there. He always had a good conscience. He was not there, however, and sometimes it felt as though he had not truly been present for quite some time. The marked changes in his behaviour suggested a truth that she did not want to face: that she had lost him to some degree. Something was taken from him that would never be given back, something that could not reattach itself in the shape of wings. Having seen a world beyond the stars, there was a part of him that would remain in that hidden place forever.

And now the peace that they had all fought for was trembling at its half-built foundations. Something was shaking below the earth, trying to topple the happiness that had felt to be achieved. There never really was such a thing as a happy ending, however. There was always something else. The folly of mankind would always follow them in humanity’s seemingly innate fear of the magical and strange.

A dark voice in her head suggested that it would be easier to lay waste to the kingdoms that threatened them. Such a thing was in the nature of a phoenix, creatures that held powers of both healing and of destruction. 

Another voice, which usually was the most present and the most clear of any of her thoughts, told her that would be an evil thing to do. Maleficent was not evil. She could not truly abide the thought of destroying kingdoms, not when there were children and other innocents within them. Not to mention that Aurora would never speak to her again.

Gritting her teeth, the faerie inhaled slowly, and then released the breath in an attempt to calm the rage still threatening to overwhelm her.

“Fine,” she said stiffly. “You are Queen of the Moors. If it is your wish to attempt to reconcile with them, then it will be done. You are capable of conducting such things with wisdom.”

Aurora breathed a sigh of relief, then. Tentatively approaching, she reached forth and took one of her mother’s clenched hands into her own, stroking the skin near her thumb with soothing motions. 

“It’s going to be alright,” she said gently. “I fear it would make father unhappy to send somebody else in his stead. Wouldn’t it? I know how close we came to losing him. I know you remember. It doesn’t mean we keep him from going out to serve his people.”

“I know, Beastie. I only ask that we wait for this to blow over before we send anyone into either of those kingdoms. Perhaps you might write to them.”

“I’ll do everything I can before resorting to an envoy. I promise.” With a smile, Aurora moved in and kissed her mother’s cheek. “We’re going to work it out, I just know it. Aren’t we, John?”

The king, surprised to have been brought into the mix, choked slightly on his wine. He raised his goblet to the pair of them, decidedly very anxious given the light sheen of sweat to his brow and the shakiness to his smile. 

“Yes. Yes! Jolly good. I’ve dealt with Breoslaigh in the past, obviously. They’re, um … yes. Negotiable. We might want to consider turning Ingrith back into a human, though, as much as she suits being a goat.”

Visibly stressed, Phillip just sighed and continued tending to a grouchy Riordan.

“Um, Maleficent,” John continued, rising from his chair. “I’ve arranged a room for you and Diaval if you ever want to stay overnight. This afternoon has been rather, erm ... taxing? You are welcome to find it in the north-east tower overlooking the Moors. Perhaps tomorrow we might have a meeting together to discuss how best to approach all this?”

Taxing was one way of putting it. And it was putting it lightly.

Maleficent could easily say how furious she was. She could have screamed in her great rage, she could have brought down the walls. What she could not accept as easily was just how afraid she was. Ultimately, it was the fear of losing her family, of watching it fall apart, that filled her with a fear unlike any other. It was a deep and painful feeling that claimed her heart when her thoughts dared turn down such paths.

She could not - _would_ not - lose any of them again. Even if it was an inevitability in the scheme of things that she was incapable of facing.

She could barely collect herself. Expertly straightening her posture, she turned to the king and stiffly nodded.

“That’ll do. This is a remarkable banquet and I hope dearly that you all enjoy it. I, however, have lost my appetite.” Looking at Aurora again, she very briefly bowed her head by manner of apology. “Beastie, darling. I shall see you bright and early in the morning.”

Without waiting for any sort of farewell in response, the faerie turned and swept out of the throne room with some relief. She had never liked that hall and all the pomp and foul memories associated with it. 

Such relief was short-lived, however. As she headed in no particular direction through the great castle, she found herself walking into a familiar melancholy, too. It was a sort of loneliness that she knew all too well, that painful void that, every now and again, would creep up on her like a hateful ghost of the past. It was an agonising reminder that nothing was permanent. Men would be corrupted by hate and the Moors would be hurt by that hate. It was a never ending cycle, one that Maleficent had been victim to far too often. 

The loneliness would return to her fully, one day. She was a long-lived faerie, but Aurora was human. And what of Diaval? Would her magic keep him alive for as long as she existed? Would he age and wither before she had a chance to? Or perhaps he would find himself at the mercy of humans, just like the spirit that had blessed him with true shapeshifting.

And what if any potential war led to another threat of extinction for the Dark Fae? For all fairykind? 

Her thoughts continued spiralling down that dour well. They were notions that had danced about the edge of her conscience for years and years, finally given new light of day fresh from the stress of that disaster in the throne room. It all threatened to overwhelm her in a devastating surge of emotion, and she became suddenly desperate to find her room, striding so swiftly through the many long, winding corridors of the castle that any staff that got in her way were forced to dive to the side or into rooms to avoid collision. 

She reached the north-eastern tower. A nervous guard quickly pointed her in the right direction down an unlit hall. When she pulled the thick, oaken doors open, she found a room decorated to her finer tastes: dark silks and cushions occupied the large bed, and the walls were of a deep, emerald green. Glass doors opposite led to a generous stone balcony. She did not take the time to explore the room, however, instead locking the doors behind her and then ridding herself of her dress. 

That petulant sorrow swelled now that she was alone. 

Sinking onto the bed, she pulled the silken cover over herself and wished that it was her nest she could settle in, instead. At risk of disappointing Aurora and avoiding talk the next day, she was forced to stay. 

As afternoon turned to evening, Maleficent finally allowed herself to weep.

It came for what felt like hours. Tears soaked the cushions beneath her head. Those miserable thoughts were unceasing as past upset returned to haunt her and as the horror of the future drew in. It felt as though prosperity was a lie, an apparition conjured in the minds of people to simply enable them to persist in a decidedly cruel reality. She would never have the future that she wanted. Never.

Her dear ones were too fragile for that. For all her power, she could not stop time itself.

Once those hours had passed, the faerie lay there on the bed in a numb state, staring into the moonlight that streamed in through the elaborate glass doors. It seemed extraordinarily bright that evening. The white-blue glow was cast across the entirety of the large room, the candelabras and furniture creating long, slow moving shadows across the creaky wooden floor. 

It was only when a dark shape formed beyond the balcony doors that her gaze flickered. Knowing full well who it was, having sensed his oncoming presence, she silently turned over and faced away when his sharp nose and dark eyes poked into the room. Though her heart pained her, she did not want him to see it.

“Yoohoo. It’s me. Did you lock the door? You won’t believe the things I’ve seen trying to find the right balcony.”

Perhaps she should have pretended to be asleep, and it seemed the wisest thing. However, the moment she heard his voice, she pined for his company and the comfort that it would bring.

“Then turn into a caterpillar and crawl under the door, next time,” she advised, though regretted it. Her voice was hoarse and even flatter than usual. Barely roused from that awful, numb state, she curled in on herself, wings and all.

“I’m not sure I like turnin’ into creepy crawlies. The world’s an even bigger, scarier place when you’re that small. Humans are so careless with their feet!” He paused, softly closing the glass doors behind him and stopping by the bed to kick off his boots. She heard him stop and sensed his gaze upon her back. “Maleficent?”

Her hand tightly covered her mouth. Clenching her eyes shut, she desperately willed the tears forming within them away. How could it all be affecting her again, and so soon?! She had never allowed herself to be like this around anybody. It was something that she did alone lest the people meant to love or fear her saw how scared she was of the world and all its unhappy endings.

But it wouldn’t stop. His presence had simply incited it. A terrible sob wracked her body and the sound escaped the hand she so desperately tried to contain it with.

“ _Maleficent.”_

“Don’t!” She demanded through her tears, feeling the bed move with Diaval’s weight.

“All right. I’ll just be right here on the edge.” True to his word, he made no further attempt to go near her, instead lying there on the very opposite side and leaving a considerable space between them. 

There was a long silence filled only with Maleficent’s poorly restrained sobs and gasps of sorrow. It got to the point she didn’t even know what she was crying about anymore. Everything was blurring in together like one miserable cloud that she could not find her way through. It was only when Diaval’s blessed voice arose again that she found a moment of focus; he suddenly sounded so sad, so sincere, that it broke her heart.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said quietly into the darkness, forlorn. “I’m sorry about everythin’. I know how hard you’ve been trying.”

The faerie’s body tremored. Lowering her wing, she dared peer over her shoulder, her eyes all the brighter for the tears streaming from them. He was beautiful there in the soft moonlight. His pale skin was aglow, and his shaggy, ebony hair was tucked behind his ears. His eyes were so beautiful and open and so plagued with undying concern and loyalty. She could hardly bear it, but neither could she look away. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she whispered, staring at him dead-on to enforce the truth of the matter. “Nothing. I hate that the world has been so cruel to one as sweet and kind as you. I want to tear it all down.”

To her surprise, he smiled gently at that.

“Ah. Then you know how I felt when I met you, Maleficent. And I’ve felt that way since then.”

Even through her sorrow, she managed to stare at him with a touch of affront. 

“I am neither sweet _nor_ kind.”

Diaval’s smile twitched. He reached out across the black silk and left his hand there in that empty space, pale and warm and inviting. 

“I know you, darlin’. I know you better than anyone.”

Though she turned away to weep again, she did eventually reach behind her. All the fear, all the torment that she felt regarding the people she loved so fiercely, it all very suddenly became that much easier to bear when she gripped his hand in hers. As devastating as her loneliness had seemed, she was reminded of its superficial nature; she was not alone, and those feelings were memories of a time long past. 

Her crying slowly ebbed. Blinking those last few tears away, she curled up into a ball and sniffled, still gripping her mate’s hand as if her life depended on it.

“Don’t you dare leave me, Diaval.”

She felt him move slightly, though he still respected their distance. 

“Why would I do that?” He asked with perplexity.

“I cannot protect you from everything in this world.”

The implication behind her words slowly settled in. Diaval shifted again, likely fighting the urge to move closer. 

“Oh. Right. Maybe not, but you shouldn’t live your life worrying about that. It feels like all we’ve ever done is fight for our right to live, doesn’t it? But if you look back … yeah, so many good memories there among the struggles. Learning to fly. Meeting you. Raisin’ a child. Learning to love. We make the most of it when we get the chance. Maybe I’m readin’ it all wrong ‘cause I’m a bird, but maybe that’s what life is. I’m so grateful that we both got a second chance.”

As they always did, his words broke through that cloud of sorrow and anger and everything else, warm and welcoming as a lantern in the woods. Every time, she realised just how thin that dreadful fog was. It served to block out the world but it was weak, banished by the love so willingly and sincerely offered by one she loved powerfully in turn.

Ravens truly were misunderstood creatures. And so were faeries. It didn’t seem to matter as much, however, when they had each other.

It took a little time, but Maleficent shifted her great wings and rolled over, crawling into the empty space between them. Diaval eagerly met her there and brought her into his arms, holding her so closely that for a time, it truly felt as though they were one entity.

He gently wiped away the remnants of her tears with his sleeve and smiled at her again when she looked at him. In response, she brought his head forwards and touched her nose against his in what she knew to be an avian show of trust and affection. On his part, that chaste touching of noses swiftly became a series of loving and attentive kisses which she met with delight, desiring the pleasure that his warm touch wrought to banish away all the wrong that she felt.

It had to end soon. She knew that. It was not her intention to coax him into things she was not sure he wanted. No doubt he was still upset by Siobhan’s cruel reminder. However, there was no sign of it stopping, and she was not the one taking the lead - she would have been on her back if not for her wings, for he was leaning over her and taking matters well enough into his own hands.

Quite literally, in fact. Despite his inexperience, he touched her so wonderfully that it brought tears to her eyes, always reminding her that he was there, always making sure that she could feel every second of his caresses. Stefan had never been so intensely mindful, for his mind had always been elsewhere. Other people, other places. 

Diaval took to kissing the edge of her pointed ear, the soft skin of her neck, the ivory stretch of her collarbone. He did it with heated finesse, leaving the faerie breathless and arching beneath him once she had spread her wings underneath her. She could barely see. Barely think. It was a different kind of fog, now, one that spread through her entire body and set her skin alight with excitement. When he made to move even lower, she thankfully had the sense to take hold of his shoulders. 

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “Are you feelin’ any better?”

“Yes. Diaval … you do not have to. You have cheered me up well enough already.”

The shapeshifter made a small, gravelly sound of acknowledgement, disobeying her by moving open-mouthed kisses about the curve of her breast. The faerie gasped loudly and crooned, more sensitive than ever given the season, and the man was, of course, a remarkably fast learner.

“Don’t laugh. I did some readin’ in the library. Wanted to be prepared,” he murmured against her skin, and then moved over to pay attention to the other breast. 

“ _What_ did you read, dear?”

“Y’know. Things. Some of ‘em even had pictures. I think the librarian thought I was a degenerate.”

Maleficent covered her mouth with her hand, this time not concealing sobs but instead a smile.

“Diaval, please do not tell me you borrowed them.”

“I did. They’re right outside the door seein’ as I couldn’t get in. I found this encyclopaedia on animals from all around the world, too. There’s a thing called a lion, have you heard of it? It’s like a giant house cat but less evil.”

Forced to grab his shoulders again before he could sink too far, she then moved her hands to his face and made him look at her, trying with all her might to read his expression and any doubts and insecurities that she might have found. What she saw, however, was an endearing nervousness, and a love so intense that she could hardly believe it. 

“If you are only doing this to make me happy, then you must stop at once. Do you understand? I am content with your presence alone. Already it has done wonders for me.”

“I know, Maleficent. I’m grateful for you thinkin’ of me. All day, though …” A flush lightly dusted his cheeks and the round of his ears, then. “Couldn’t stop thinking about last night, actually. Couldn’t stop thinkin’ about you. That dress really didn’t help. I thought those two bastards might’ve killed my mood, but I think taking the time to learn a little somethin’ or two helped. If you’ll lend me your patience for the thousandth time …”

“Always,” Maleficent breathed, unsure whether to be amused or excited by what she had heard. “Do only what you are comfortable with.”

What she was not expecting to see was one of his crooked grins. He flashed it at her before dropping down to resume his heated but tender ministrations, learning the spots that elicited the strongest reactions from her and focusing there, holding her fast in his strong hands. 

“I’ll help you feel better,” he promised, then dipped down.

The faerie allowed herself to succumb to him as she had succumbed to nobody else; there was no guard, no walls, no Stefan, no pestering thoughts of _will I ever be enough?_

She was enough. No matter how often the dark of the world saw fit to close in, she could rest assured that she was loved. Always. If she did not make the most of those precious moments, then she would be squandering a very precious gift, indeed. 

Maleficent’s thoughts were turned away from the dark that night.

At least for a time.


	3. The Missing Piece

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like I’ve had to bump this up another chapter ... again. Lol. Short of inflicting a massive chapter on you all! See you at number 4!
> 
> Be mindful of tags for this chapter!

Though her head was heavy and sore from those hours spent weeping, her body felt as light as a feather.

Her legs refused to move, trembling every so often with a warm, lingering bliss. Her skin was so alarmingly sensitive that she could still feel phantom touches, and she shivered at each brush of the silk sheets across her skin. She somehow felt exhausted and energetic all at once. Curled in against Diaval’s side, she drew formless shapes across his chest and abdomen, and they stayed together like that for a long time, bathed in the soft moonlight streaming in through the glass doors and windows.

Eventually, Maleficent found the strength to lean up on her elbow and peer inquisitively at her mate, leaning in seconds later to brush feather-light kisses along his jaw. The man wore the expression of one that had just been exposed to all the deepest secrets of the universe and did not quite know what to do with the information. Roused by the movement and Maleficent’s touch, he blinked and moved an arm beneath his head, smiling vaguely at her. 

“D’you think …” he rasped into the silence. After pausing to clear his throat, he continued, “D’you think it’ll work? With me bein’, well …”

“We will have to wait and see. Let’s not think of it yet. How are you feeling?”

That concern had been present for much of the evening. When all of their attempts thus far had been unsuccessful and often resulted in stress or upset, she had quietly worried for Diaval’s wellbeing as well as her own. However, they both remained in a state of perfect and euphoric relaxation, Maleficent herself pleasantly surprised and even somewhat emotional in the aftermath of something that had been remarkable. 

It had been a wholly loving affair. The two were unable to pull apart for even a moment. Maleficent had been embarrassed by it at first, feeling more exposed than she had for years on end, but Diaval had seen fit to kiss away her insecurities until she was breathless. He treated her as though she was a queen, and in turn, she held him with all the gentility and tenderness that he deserved, holding his hands as he eagerly traversed a world that seemed to intrigue him as much as it had frightened him.

Even now that it was over, he looked at her as though she was the most wonderful being on the earth. It was something she might have caught him doing every now and then in the past, and she had never really understood it. She still did not understand it, not really, though she was far more willing these days to be accepting of it instead of simply looking away and pretending as though such love did not exist. 

Diaval rolled slightly to face her. His hand alternated between idly stroking her back to moving into the downy feathers near the base of her wings.

“Yeah,” he murmured in response, his dark eyes sleepily regarding her. “Yeah. It was, um … You’re amazin’, Maleficent. You’re like heaven.”

The faerie quietly scoffed, amused by his tired prattling, though something of a flush did touch at her cheeks. 

“‘S true,” Diaval insisted. “Beautiful. So strong and clever. I’m just … in awe. In love.”

“Stop that.” Maleficent laughed and fought the urge to hide her face in the cushions, instead choosing to glare playfully. “You do not have to say such things all the time. Far too sentimental for my tastes.”

“I do. Otherwise how would you know how I feel?” The fiend’s smile became a smirk and he moved in to kiss her soundly on the lips. “You’re a fibber. You like it really.”

“I do not. Faeries do no such thing as  _ fib. _ ”

“Is that so? You were drinkin’ it in back there.”

“Yes, well. That’s different. I was overwhelmed. I did not know you had much of that in you.”

“Mhm. Me neither,” Diaval purred thoughtfully, his smirk transforming into something truly wicked. Leaning in close to her pointed ear, he kissed the soft lobe, nuzzling her. “I had it in you, though.”

“For god’s sake.” Maleficent rolled her eyes. She felt a huff of laughter against her neck and so pushed him away from her in response, forcing him onto his back. He was swift to latch back onto her however, and she welcomed his embrace with a sigh, drawing his head down onto her chest. There, she ran her fingers slowly through his soft hair in an attempt to lull him into sleep. 

After a moment or two, Diaval asked softly, “Was it alright?” There was a touch of tired nervousness in the rasp to his voice. Maleficent knew exactly the expression he would be wearing if she could see his face: his eyes round and laden with emotion, as heartbreaking as it was handsome. It must have been an intimidating sort of question to ask, especially for one who preferred to be able to flaunt himself with confident grace, but then again, such things came with more difficulty these days.

“It was perfect,” the faerie admitted, stroking her hand down the back of his head reminiscent of the way she would pet him in his raven-shape. “Wonderful.”

The man made a small sound against her skin and cuddled up to her, wrapping his arm around her and tucking his head beneath it in bird-like fashion. That wild and exciting scent of his was potent in such a position, and Maleficent found herself willingly consuming it for comfort, her body fully relaxing and still pleasantly tingling.

Silently, she prayed to the gods to bless them with a little one.

There was much to talk about. The disastrous dinner, the future, but it did not seem the time. All either of them wanted to do that night was bask in each other’s presence and enjoy that happiness while it lasted. All the more, soothed by the soft caresses of her fingers, Diaval fell asleep almost immediately and she would not have dreamt of waking him, knowing full well what it had likely taken for him to perform that night. That he seemed happy and relaxed about the matter filled her with enormous relief.

The pair stayed that way for hours, deep into the depths of night.

* * *

Maleficent slept soundly enough. She would have preferred her own nest, but she was weary enough from the all the emotion of the day to rest without qualm. As time drew on, however, she became restless.

Her dreams were rarely pleasant things, though they were far less common than they used to be. That night, the faerie found herself plagued by a vision she had not seen before - it was not the maddened countenance of Stefan, nor the feeling of waking up without wings - no, it was a place that she had never seen, and in the dream she was flying but trapped in place by a cold wind. Beneath her, monstrous black waves crashed against what looked to be a small and insignificant island, one protected by brambles and what felt to be a dark and devastating magic. 

The dream consisted of this vision for some time, unchanging save for the beastly, roiling waves of the sea below. The sight of the little island near enough drowning filled her with a discomfort that she could not place. Why was it so cold?

In the depths of night, when all was silent, Maleficent awoke again with a start.

That feeling of discomfort did not ebb. It only seemed to build as she came to and remembered where she was. Shivering, she drew the sheets around herself and realised that Diaval was not there to share his warmth. She was alarmed by his absence given the uncomfortable sensation prickling at the back of her neck, and so was immediately fearful as she searched the darkness with her sharp eyes.

He was there in front of the elaborate stone fireplace. He cut a pale figure, naked and exposed to the chill, but he seemed to pay that no mind. The man was standing so perfectly still that another wave of something uncomfortable washed over Maleficent. Was this another dream?

“Diaval?” She spoke into the oppressing silence, and her voice sounded small. 

He did not respond or even move. It was only when Maleficent quietly moved out of the bed and began a slow approach that she realised his forehead was pressed against the curved spire of the chimney. Immediately unnerved by that, the faerie was at first frightened to go near him, staring in increasing fear as she wondered what on earth was going on and what could be wrong.

Diaval had always been a restless sort of sleeper, even before his time in Wickpon. He had a tendency to talk or make noises in his sleep depending on what shape he took. It had annoyed Maleficent in the early days of their relationship, and then it had come to both amuse and sort of comfort her, too, for it was a reminder of his presence and that she was not spending the night alone. More rarely, he would sleepwalk, something that had frightened her at first until she had come to understand just what it was. His mind just never seemed to want to switch off. 

Maleficent was not comforted by the realisation he was still asleep, because there was something playing at her senses. Something that, for some reason, was setting her on edge. 

Steeling herself, she drew forwards and very carefully slipped her hand between Diaval’s forehead and the stone to prise him off. His eyes flickered dully in response to her touch, unseeing and unusually bothered. There was a light sheen of sweat to his skin and he looked fearful as he was guided away from the stone.

“It’s alright,” Maleficent tried to reassure him, uncertain if he could hear her. “Come back to bed where it is warm.”

He obeyed her without question, allowing her to lay him back down beneath the pools of silken sheets. For a time, it seemed as though he might fall back into a deep slumber and then come the morning he would not remember a moment of it. 

It was not to be, however. Like many nights before, he was disturbed, fidgeting and tossing and turning while mumbling and gasping quietly beneath his breath. Maleficent watched him from her side of the bed with concern. They had not seen a night so bad in a while. Had it been her intimate touch to have inspired such bother? Had it secretly troubled him?

Frowning deeply, the faerie reached over and pressed her palm gently to Diaval’s forehead, preparing to issue a spell of sleep that would see him unbothered by dreams. Before she could, however, something strange occurred.

That uncomfortable feeling suddenly built markedly. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. With a gasp, she was suddenly beholden to whatever it was her partner was seeing through no spell of her own, and it appeared to her like a dream within her own mind. 

There was a cold place. A cave, only it was cold in a way that the faerie had never felt. It was not the chill of Winter but something else bitter, the cold of a corpse, the breath of a ghost. She could hear the crashing of waves over her head and beneath her feet. What was this cursed place?

In the vision, she turned, and what she saw filled her with a deep dread unlike anything she had ever known.

Set in the wet, black walls of the cave was an unnatural archway. It was twice her height at its highest point, narrow and crooked. A carven stone raven skull sat at the peak, and wings flanked the archway, the solid feathers decorated with inscriptions in a language that seemed familiar but one she could not read. Upon the skull’s head was a carving of a winged hourglass. Beneath it, shrouding the foreboding tunnel, was a ragged black veil that drifted ominously about in the rattling wind that emanated from behind it. 

Maleficent could not see into the darkness beyond the archway, nor did she want to. 

She was torn from the vision and she pulled her hand away from Diaval’s head as though burnt. Sitting bolt upright, she stared down at him in shock and found his eyes open and increasingly aware. The man breathed heavily as he awoke, fresh from the nightmare of …  _ whatever _ that place was. 

“Maleficent?”

“It’s me,” she assured him, trying not to sound frightened. “What was that? The cave in your dreams.”

As Diaval gained his breath back, he looked up at her with enormous uncertainty. Rubbing his eyes, he sat up and glanced about the room, his gaze nervous and flighty. 

“It’s, er …” he croaked fearfully, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I feel weird. Do you feel that, too? Something seems wrong.”

“I feel it. Diaval, what was that place? Why does it plague your dreams so?”

The shapeshifter shook his head in a display of reluctance. It took him a moment, though as his consciousness returned fully into the real world, he looked at Maleficent at long last, his face touched with a degree of confusion. 

“It’s, well … I saw it. Didn’t you see it? When Ingrith …” His jaw tensed. “When she shot you.”

Trying to make sense of what he was saying, Maleficent stared.

“Why would I have seen that awful place?”

“Because it’s a way in, Maleficent. I saw it after Wynne’s curse claimed me. I remember going through it. It was like bein’ sucked in. It’s where the dead enter the Otherworld, I think. I saw things on the other side.” Diaval glanced away again, and his dark eyes were haunted by the memories he spoke of. “Then I remember seein’ gold, then a flash of white, and I must’ve been pulled right out again. Really weird feeling, y’know. Then … there you were, shinin’ above me like an angel.”

Maleficent could hardly believe what she was hearing. Though she had, of course, heard stories of the things people believed happened in the afterlife, she had never heard an honest recount of it. The Otherworld was a mystery that the living did not understand, and she could not remember seeing that old, cursed doorway into the unknown when that iron bolt had pierced her back. She could not remember seeing anything.

“You have never spoken of this,” she said solemnly. “Not once.”

“No. It’s, um … It’s a bit frightening to think about. I just wanted to leave it in the past, I think, but it won’t let me. It’s either that or her every night.” Diaval ran a hand down his tired face, uncomfortable with the topic at hand. “I never realised how long it takes these things to go away.”

The pallor of his cheeks drained yet further. He suddenly seemed unwell, and Maleficent felt helpless, unsure what to say or do. She was still unnerved by what she had seen and uncomfortable with the sensation of dread toying at her senses - what did it mean? Was it a result of an uncomfortable subject and vision, or was it something else?

“Maybe we should have waited a little longer,” she murmured, remorseful. There was something of an apology in her words. Perhaps it was that she had been impatient and now they were suffering for it … but he had seemed so welcoming and enthusiastic, she had been convinced that the time was right. 

Diaval stared at her, perplexed, then shook his head after an apparent moment of realisation. 

“It’s not that, I promise. It’s somethin’ else. Can you feel it?” The man fidgeted uncomfortably. A soft sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead and chest, and it suddenly seemed that he was increasingly short of breath as a panicked wheezing took hold. “It feels like … I don’t know -“

“Like something is going to happen.” Maleficent gazed at him a moment longer, then made to move off the bed, caressing Diaval’s cheek with her hand as she passed him. She used magic to dress herself into a simple black garment that was easy to move in. “I wish I could say that I do not feel it, too.”

There was a sudden flurry of movement behind the glass doors. 

The pair of them froze, staring at moonlit glass that led out onto the balcony.

Maleficent’s heart began to pound. Chilled to the bone, she quickly threw Diaval’s clothes onto the bed and spread her wings to shield him from view. Once he was changed into his court attire and sash, he joined her there and together they crept towards the doors in silence, inwardly preparing to defend themselves from whatever had briefly cast its shadow across the room. 

With her wings raised in a threatening display, Maleficent took hold of the brass handles and then pulled the doors open, exposing the stone balcony and the extravagant view of the river and the Moors beyond.

And there, on the white stone railing, was a snowy owl of pure white. 

She was not comforted by the apparent innocence of such a creature, for its hellish eyes were of a blood red and as round as moons, fixated on her as though she were something as simple as a mouse. Never before had she seen such an animal, something so small and yet intimidating in a way she had never known, as if the beast would merely have to blink to cause the very stars to fall from the sky and burn the lands below.

It surprised her yet further. Before she could act upon frightening it away, the owl unleashed a chilling screech and then it was suddenly shrouded in a white mist, those pale shadows roiling over its body until its shape changed into something even more frightening.

A white raven.

The creature squawked and tilted its bone-white head, those terrible eyes unblinking as it continued to regard them from its stone perch.

“Maleficent,” she heard Diaval breathe, and he sounded so frightened that she reached over and took hold of his hand. “What is that?!”

Before they could consider it for much longer, the white raven croaked at them a second time before turning and taking off into the cold night sky. Its raspy song sounded across the castle until it at last disappeared around the side of the tower.

“I do not know,” Maleficent admitted quietly, disturbed. “Another shapeshifter, but from where?”

“Didn’t seem very friendly. Shall I follow it?”

“No.” Gripping Diaval’s hand, she was about to sternly admonish the idea, but she didn’t get the chance.

Of all the things she had expected to happen that night, what would follow was something she never could have even dreamed of.

It began with a stench of sea fog and brine that billowed in with the Winter wind. Despite how swiftly it had approached, it could have been an entirely innocent phenomenon given that Ulstead was situated by the sea, but the unpleasant smell gradually became worse until it became something truly fetid, something more like the rotting of a carcass. 

And then, there on the black horizon, the sky flashed green. 

It was a silent pulse of an unknown power that lit the line of the inky-black sea as well as the sun. There lingered a glowing green line that reached for the stars, and then that ominous beam of light burst outwards to swallow the stars and even the Moon entirely, illuminating the world in a ghastly haze. Gone was the soft, blue-white glow of Winter, smothered by an otherworldly light that touched all of Ulstead and the unsuspecting Moors ahead. 

As she watched this terrifying and mysterious event unfold, Maleficent found herself hoping that it was all only a strange dream, that she had never truly woken up from the vision of that lonely island in the middle of dark waves. 

A cold numbness sank through her very heart. It was like watching the beginning of the end of the world. 

Holding tightly on to Diaval’s hand, she watched, agonised, as the sea fog was given form across the sea. It formed into an eldritch cloud of greys and greens and even reds, glittering in the mysterious light that now dominated the sky. The mist grew and grew as it spread hungrily across the sea until it was miles across, surely enough to smother the entirety of Ulstead once it found its way to shore - and that was certainly the direction in which it was heading. 

With building terror, the faerie could only watch as that ever-building wall of magical mist surged towards the kingdom, building in height like a great wave of water that threatened to drown the land. That feeling of dread was now a pure fear; whatever they had felt about to happen was now occurring, that monstrous veil of rotting stench and a dark, unknown magic bearing down upon the kingdom and then washing over it upon finally crashing to shore. 

The Moors disappeared in the mist. Even the rest of the castle could not be seen within that heavy green haze.

Beyond, horns and great bells sounded from the guard towers around the city, but what good would it do?

Maleficent turned and tried to make out Diaval’s features within the mist. The light it cast him in was not pleasant, something pale and sickly that seemed to drown the natural kindness of his eyes and made them seem empty of anything. 

“Find Aurora,” she found herself saying before she could even think, a cold panic settling in. She did not know what was happening, but she could not let anything happen to her family, no matter what. “Protect her. I will find the cause of this mist and remove it.”

“But - Maleficent!” Diaval began, desperate. He was truly pale by then, drained of colour. “You can’t go alone. Don’t you know what this is? The ravens had stories of such a thing, and - I saw it myself, once. It’s the Feth Fiadha. It’s the mist that hides the unseen. You can’t just go flying off into it!”

“ _ What  _ unseen?” The faerie insisted impatiently, already preparing her wings for flight.

The raven’s face fell. Turning, he surveyed the hidden world with despair. He appeared more ghost than man within the macabre glow of whatever mystical energies pulsed within the sky, and Maleficent fought the urge to bundle him back into the bed where it was surely safer than the exposed balcony. After a moment of panicked consideration, Diaval then climbed onto the stone rail and slid over it to stand on the narrow ledge on the other side. 

Maleficent watched with creeping horror. Acting on instinct, she grabbed the back of his doublet and held him firmly there.

“Have you gone mad?!” She questioned him furiously. “Diaval! It can’t be that bad!”

“What? No! I need to transform! I can’t find my way through this gigantic castle!”

“And what if you turn into a walrus and plummet to your death, you great fool?! You are not thinking!”

“No, it’ll be a raven. It’s right there, I can feel it, I just need -“

Diaval was interrupted when Maleficent roughly pulled him back over the stone ledge. He fell clumsily to the floor and then hurried back to his feet, his eyes wide with panic. He was so unfocused that Maleficent could not stand to see it; it was not the way things were supposed to be! He was supposed to be the level-headed one, the constant voice of reason in a world of madness, but now even he was overwhelmed with the knowledge of whatever waited in the magical mist swarming the city. His panic only inspired her own in turn, though she did her utmost to conceal it.

“I don’t want to go back,” moaned Diaval, shaking like a leaf. 

“Back  _ where? _ Darling -“ Maleficent seized his face in both hands and forced him to look at her, urgently stroking at the markings by his eyes with her thumbs. “Listen to me. Take a good, deep breath and listen. Find Aurora. Find our daughter. Protect her and the little one. There is nobody else I would trust with such a task.”

It took a moment, but upon mention of Aurora’s name, the cloud of dull hysteria in her mate’s eyes gradually cleared to be replaced with a more familiar determination. 

“Aurora,” he repeated, then nodded. “Yes. I’ll find her. Maleficent -“ Taking her hands into his, he stared at her beseechingly. “Please be careful. The world isn’t our own when the Feth Fiadha appears. I can’t believe this is happening.” After a deep breath, Diaval moved in and kissed Maleficent with a certain ferocity that might have swept her off her feet at any other time. As it was, all she could do was reciprocate with those still lingering passions, and she watched as he stepped back and closed his eyes to concentrate.

His shapeshifting ability obeyed him this time. When the shadows departed his form, he hovered there in his raven-shape a moment longer, and then he disappeared off the edge of the balcony and down into the misty pools below. Maleficent regretted watching him go. To be alone in the midsts of the unknown left her feeling more vulnerable than she liked. She knew, however, that her family would be safer if they were together, and she was one of the few who could dive into such peril and emerge unscathed.

She wished dearly that none of this was happening. Though the tales of the magical mist known as the Feth Fiadha had eluded her, she understood well enough that its sudden appearance could not be a good thing. Nothing of it felt right. Diaval had been beside himself with fear. She also knew, however, that she was of the phoenix line and was the most powerful of all fairykind. There was nothing in the mist, no monster or demon that could hurt one as strong as as a phoenix.

With that knowledge in mind, Maleficent brought herself into the sky with mighty movements of her great wings and dived down to soar among the many towers and spires of Ulstead’s castle. She nearly crashed into some of them several times, nearly blinded by the thick, stinking fog, though managed to find her way clear of the castle and blasted at the shroud with strong beats of her wings to try and clear a path over the city. 

The closer she drew to the houses, the more she came to realise what peril the city was in.

She could hear screams piercing the ominous silence. She could hear glass smashing, doors breaking, walls crumbling. She could hear the crackling of flames that she could not see, the clang of swords and shields. The noises were dull and muffled as though they were occurring in another world entirely.

Maleficent was not fond of humans in the slightest, and yet she felt their plight as she drew down over the city she could barely see. Ulstead was their ally and if the kingdom’s innocents were suffering, then the faerie had an obligation to lend her great power.

She landed down in the main square where the cobbled roads and the statues were glistening with the slick residue of fog. The dim light of lanterns did nothing to help lift the dark, toxic green of everything surrounding her. Hearing the petrified screams of the townsfolk as unseen creatures seemed to ransack through their homes, she reached inside herself to summon her good, golden power and tried to both lift the fog and to heal any nearby injuries.

Nothing happened.

She tried again, searching even deeper for any remnant of that power, that which was hers and nobody else’s and surely was  _ not _ stifled by the potent, mystical energy that formed over Ulstead like a bubble. 

It was there on the very edge of her consciousness. She could feel it, but something was stopping her from reaching it. It wasn’t  _ possible _ . 

In her growing rage, Maleficent lashed out and attacked the nearest statue, that of a hunter felling a stag, with her destructive green magic. The stone stag was cut straight in half, its front end toppling from the marble pedestal to smash into pieces on the cobbles below. Maleficent stared at it, then down at her hands. What was happening? Why were her life-giving abilities suffering beneath this cruel haze?

There was no time to think about it. As the din around her seemed to become increasingly violent, the faerie beat her wings again and cleared the glittering mist away from the open square.

And what she saw almost stilled her heart.

Houses were burning with lime-green flames. She could see humans running between houses and through the alleys and she was suddenly incapable of lending them her beneficial magic. Pig-headed goblins carrying spears were snorting in delight as they chased these poor humans through the streets, creatures that were certainly not of the Moors given the mindless violence with which they acted.

Turning, she saw unnaturally tall and spindly women moving slowly about the square like phantoms. Behind the sheer veils that covered their bedraggled hair and faces, their eye sockets were empty and the flesh around their mouths was rotted. Some of them carried lanterns filled with that destructive green fire, and when they threw the lanterns into windows of shops and houses, the creatures released such piercing, haunting screams that Maleficent had to cover her ears.

Goblins and banshees were not the end of it. A red, bat-like creature the size of a horse shrieked as it flew overhead. Terrible, impish devils with horns and pointed tails clambered over the buildings in gangs, laughing raucously as they devastated all they could reach with their burning magic and mischief. Strange, faceless spirits guided two-headed wolves on thick chains. That all was not even the half of it. 

If Maleficent could not fix nor heal all the damage the monstrosities had done, then she would have to fight fire with fire.

The faerie stretched out her hands and summoned the force of her magic, that which was aggressive and vengeful in nature. It built in her palms, in her eyes, beneath her feet, and then it spread out across the ground like wildfire. Clenching her fingers, Maleficent threw her hands forwards and snarled. 

Her magic lashed out towards the city’s assailants. It struck them with all the ire that she felt, scorching them and sometimes even trying to destroy the most violent of the creatures in spires of flame. Any that were vanquished disappeared in bursts of white smoke, the clouds of which did not vanish but instead soared back in the direction of the sea. 

Maleficent moved through the city this way, striking at any of the wicked creatures that she could see. One, two, three, ten, twenty, fifty, she did not stop, still beating at the mist with her wings to unveil more of the tormentors as she went. Enraged by the sounds of suffering around her, she almost became lost in her vengeance, striking and burning the monsters that dared harm the helpless humans with a twisted sort of delight. It was only the thought of her family that kept her from sinking into retribution entirely.

Where were they? Were they safe?

Heading into the spacious castle grounds, she found guards and soldiers battling with the devils and the goblins and whatever else had seen fit to venture past the walls. She helped the humans as she went, destroying the creatures with waves of her hands. What she came to realise, however, was that she was not actually killing anything. The monsters did not have beating hearts in their chests; she wondered if she was merely inconveniencing them rather than destroying them, because that which did not truly live did not die, either. 

Her suspicions only seemed more true when she found the humans fighting others that looked like them. Armoured entities with no heartbeats and empty, pale eyes. Were they souls? Spirits of humanity taken and twisted into soldiers to fight a battle with no known cause? To see it brought Maleficent a deep and harrowing sadness, for the very dead had been somehow summoned back into the world of the living where they did not belong. Still, she had no choice but to destroy those souls when she saw them, sending the smoky remnants hurtling back towards the sea.

She heard screams ahead. Soaring forwards, she cleared the gardens of the mist and landed there to find the guards peering up at a dark shape moving slowly through the grounds. It was monstrous in size, about as tall as the temple attached to the castle nearby, and when it came closer to unveil itself, the dread Maleficent had felt before was nothing compared to what spiked within her, then.

It was no mere ghoul or goblin or ghost. Looking up at the entity, Maleficent suddenly felt like a mere animal in comparison.

The figure was man-shaped, clad in dark and ragged robes, though its skeletal head was that of a ram, its curled horns blackened and decaying. Pinprick red lights glowed from the insides of its empty eye sockets. It was mounted upon a white horse-like creature with horribly long legs and antlers that threatened to scrape the very sky itself. As the being rode slowly past, its ram-head turned and seemed to look right at Maleficent with those terrible eyes.

She had heard of such a being before, described in tales spoken by her people. It could be no one but Donn himself, a god of death and a fearsome entity by all accounts. The dread energies that radiated from him were so massive and so stifling that she thought she might suffocate from his presence alone.

It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t  _ happening _ . It was all surely a terrible nightmare! The gods had not shown themselves for thousands of years, and yet now she stood before one of the most fearsome and terrifying of them all. What did one do when faced with a god of death? It was no wonder that her healing magic was smothered when such a deity was wondering the kingdom; the light of a phoenix could not burn in a land where death itself was king.

Aurora. Diaval. Riordan. They would be helpless against something like a god. She had to find them. If the cause of the Feth Fiadha was Donn himself, she was not foolish enough to risk it all in a mere attempt to stop him. Her family had to come before anything else!

She took a step back. Then another. Donn watched her, making no attempt to stop her from leaving. Perhaps he knew something that she didn’t.

Maleficent spread her wings and flew towards the castle entrance. Her heart was pounding in her ears, she could hardly breathe from shock. What was happening? Why were they here? What had Ulstead done to deserve an assault from the more wicked realms of the Otherworld? 

Dropping to her feet, the faerie entered a sprint in her panic and barrelled through the grand halls and corridors of the castle, a place that was once filled with light and life and extravagance. Now, it was plagued by the yells of guards and the shrieks and hollers of monsters. She destroyed the enemy in every room that she encountered, though her goal now was to find those who were lost in the unforgiving storm. 

“Aurora!” She called, becoming increasingly desperate. Heading up the spiral staircase of the tower that housed Aurora and Phillip’s room, she went as fast as her legs and wings could carry her through those haunted halls. “ _ Aurora!” _

The braziers on the walls now burned with green fire courtesy of the banshees wandering aimlessly about the labyrinth of stone. Maleficent struck the ghouls one by one, eventually emerging upon the doors that led to her daughter’s room. With a cry of fear, she burst into the room and found it empty of the people that she sought. 

Maleficent could have wept, and she might have done if not for the realisation that she was not alone. 

There was a man stood in the room. He had his back turned to her, gazing out of the window. Given his long hair and the crown upon his head, Maleficent at first thought it was King John, though decided against it when she saw the iron armour upon his body. John was a man of peace, and he would have certainly greeted her with more enthusiasm than whoever this person was.

There was no heartbeat. The person was not of the living. The emerald light shining in through the window illuminated the man - the ghost - in an unwelcoming manner.

Time seemed to stand still in that moment.

It dawned on her.  _ It couldn’t be. _

Donn himself was a more welcome apparition than this. Maleficent froze. Chills raced across her skin and an intense feeling of sickness gripped her belly. She felt colder than she had ever felt in her life. What cruelty was this? She had seen the man die herself, she was part of the reason he was buried in the first place. Not once had she felt remorse for her role in his demise, for he was the root of all of her mistrust of mankind, all of her rage. He had abused her trust and laid his hands upon her to steal that which did not belong to him, and for years, Maleficent had suffered.

Stefan turned. There was an iron chain hanging from his belt. She did not perceive the weapon for a long time, trapped staring at the man she had once loved and hated so fiercely that she wanted nothing more than to rip him limb from limb for the things that he had done. The maddened look to his eyes terrified her as much as it had all those years ago, and angry tears sprung to her eyes at once.

It was no nightmare. She would have preferred a nightmare to this hell. 

“Maleficent,” Stefan said in that breathy lilt. His pale eyes widened, and then he dared attempt something of a smile. “I see … the years have been kinder to you than they have to me.”

“You know nothing of kindness,” Maleficent said quietly, stunned by her own ability to respond. Her words were true, she knew that much. She had grown since Stefan’s death, and she realised that she was perhaps not quite as scared as she might have thought; Maleficent knew of kindness because she had seen it, felt it, experienced it for all those years. The love of her family had healed her broken heart, piecing it back together to be even stronger than it was before.

Stefan was nothing to be frightened of. Not anymore.

The faerie glowered at the ghost, looking down her nose at him. He only stared at her in that manic way of his, his grey, grizzled jaw tensing. 

“Where is my daughter?” He asked blankly, pointing towards the vacant bed, and then towards the extravagant crib beside it. “She married the Ulstead boy, did she? Where is my grandchild?” His gaze flickered down, and he dully acknowledged the onyx ring on Maleficent’s left hand. “And you … How grand it is to see that you moved on, Maleficent. You should know that I never did. It’s all I’ve thought about since I’ve festered in that place. I thought to myself, what might’ve happened if I’d just been a bit smarter? It would’ve been you falling to the ground. Not me. Not me. And I never would have married Aurora off to King John’s spawn.”

“You are _dead_ ,” Maleficent responded, squaring herself. “None of this is any of your concern. I do not know what foul magic brought you back, but I shall be the one to end it.” She sneered, then. “You foul wretch.”

Stefan laughed a bit at that, though there was no humour to his hungered gaze. 

“It is my concern. You were mine, once. Everything I ever touched was mine. I was the king of Perceforest. I would have had you again, even if it was to kill you and every last cursed fairy upon the Moors.” His smile fell, and he glanced towards the silken sheets of the bed. “You were mine as Perceforest was mine. Remember that.”

There were all sorts of things that Maleficent could have said in response. She could have let his words affect her, she could have let them incite her anger and her pain, and there was a time where perhaps she would have. Not now, however. Not now she knew better. All that she heard now was the prattling of a madman who had been consumed by greed and the need to be something more than what he was for so long that he knew nothing else. 

She only pitied him, in a way. She pitied the boy she knew who would become that awful man. 

And it gave her strength to know that she could say nothing and simply walk away. 

And so, she made to do just that. Though stunned and hurt by his appearance, she did, oddly, feel a sort of joy. She had never truly realised just how insignificant that man had become until now, and it was thanks to her own strides in life that she had found herself able to see the truth for what it was: he was  _ nothing _ compared to her. He was a ghost, and she was a phoenix reborn from the sorrow he had wrought.

Stefan was only wasting her time; she had to find her family, she had to find a way to stop the Feth Fiadha before the monsters within it completely destroyed Ulstead. That he had reappeared would have to bother her later, after she had found a way to put an end to the supernatural disaster claiming the city.

Stefan, however, would not grant her what she needed.

From the back of his belt, he pulled something that Maleficent had never seen the likes of before. At first it looked like some sort of throwing weapon - a bent metal tube small enough to fit into one hand. She almost scoffed. What could such a thing possibly do to her? She raised a hand and was about to knock the thing straight out of his hand with magic, but it was too late.

The thing popped and black smoke burst from the tube. The sound startled her sensitive ears.

And then agony blossomed in her chest, right beneath her collarbone. 

Looking down, she was devastated to find a smoking wound there. Iron! The unassuming little weapon had shot iron straight into her! Where could a mere ghost have come across such a thing? Immediately enraged by the attack, Maleficent hissed past her fangs and struck Stefan with the full might of her destructive magic. There was no hesitation, no second thoughts; the man was dead to her and always would be, no matter how often his soul tried to haunt her.

The man’s expression did not change when he was struck by that terrible spire of green magic. He only stared as his spirit-like form was shredded by the flames. Once he was dispersed, the smoky remnants of his body disappeared through the window.

Only then did Maleficent allow herself to succumb to the sheer agony of the iron pellet embedded in her. Only then did she express her rage, dropping down and slamming at the floor with her hands. The iron burned her from within, all she could smell was her own scorched flesh. The pain was such that her vision wavered and her heart fluttered weakly in her chest. Struggling to stay conscious, she pressed her palm to the wound and tried to stop the flow of magic leaking from it.

Nothing would stop her from finding her family. Not iron. Not Stefan.

The faerie forced herself back to her feet and stumbled to the wall to brace herself against it. There was little time left - she knew from experience that the iron would enter her blood and hinder her magic. With this in mind, she tore herself out of Aurora’s room and back to the corridors beyond, following the trail of scorch marks she had left behind destroying the fetid monsters.

She could not stop the Feth Fiadha. Not like this. That much was certain when gods were present to oversee it.

Regretting her prior over-confidence, Maleficent bared her teeth in frustration and pain. She should have gone with Diaval to find Aurora! Overwhelmed with sheer powerlessness, she could have screamed. If she were to ever find the people or entities responsible for this nightmare, she would ensure that they suffered for a long, long time. The source of it, however, was not important. Not yet.

Focusing on what she could sense of Diaval’s presence, she latched onto it and prayed that her family would be found together, safe from harm. 

That rancid green fog was still blowing over Ulstead when she reached the outside world. It showed no signs of letting up. Monsters were still springing from the glittering veil of it, and the poor human soldiers were still fighting, doing their utmost to protect the nobles and townsfolk trying desperately to find their way to safety. Maleficent no longer had the strength in her wings to beat the fog away, and so pulled herself along the stone walls of the castle away from the din, desperately searching as her vision swam and blurred and as her legs threatened to give way at any moment.

She heard roaring. A shrill scream.

Keeping her hand pressed to her burning wound, Maleficent ambled on until she reached the great, marble temple that emerged from the mist like a morbid sepulchre. Statues of robed humans with rings behind their heads stood guard outside, but their blank gazes had done nothing to stop whatever violence was unfolding within the walls of the place. 

The faerie pulled open one of the ruined wooden doors and stumbled inside. Her dread had spiked upon laying eyes upon the temple; she knew that Diaval was inside, she knew that those were his enraged roars, and she knew that those screams had belonged to her daughter. Terrified by what she might find, she charged in to the great, white hall, magic sparking weakly at her fingertips.

Her vision went black. She crumpled to the ground, restraining an agonised scream. The iron burning within her was too much. 

“Mother!”

_ Get up, you fool. Get up! _

The sound of her daughter’s voice was all that gave her the strength to push herself shakily back onto her feet. Giving up simply was not an option. 

Crying out, she balanced herself with her wings and waited those few seconds for her sight to return before turning to find Aurora stood near the doors to the temple. The queen’s feet and legs were encased in ice, trapping her there, and the small group of handmaids behind her were similarly afflicted, all of them trembling and wide-eyed with terror. Riordan was screaming in Aurora’s arms, his tiny fists beating at the air. 

“Mother!” Aurora whimpered again. Her cheeks were red and wet from crying, and her blonde waves were tangled about her head. The flowery nightgown she wore was torn and dirtied with mud. “You’re hurt!”

Maleficent could not respond. Straightening her features, she held out her hands and used the lingering shreds of her magic to destroy the ice encasing the feet of the women. Once they were freed, the handmaids were brave enough to wait there by the broken doors as their royal charge flew to her mother.

They pulled apart from their swift embrace. The faerie turned upon hearing another devastating roar. In her desperation to save Aurora, she had not taken in just what was happening in that charred temple hall. 

Diaval wore the shape of an enormous black lion. He was as glorious as he was fearsome in that form, his dark, beautiful mane shimmering with feathers. The marvellous creature was engaged in battle with another beast that looked just like him, only the other shapeshifter was smaller and pure white in colour. The pair tore violently at each other with teeth and claws and fought with all their might, Diaval strategically positioning himself to push or pull the white shapeshifter away from Aurora and the young women.

Though Diaval was the larger of the two, his enemy was less cautious. The white lion lunged and jumped onto his back, but before those stark white teeth could sink into his neck, Diaval transformed again - this time into his formidable bear-shape. Dragging the white lion off his shoulders, he used all his strength to throw the beast into one of the marble pillars, causing it to topple and destroy an entire row of wooden pews. 

Panting, Diaval dropped down onto all fours and roared. His dark fur was slick with blood and he stumbled with exhaustion, but when the other shapeshifter came at him again in the form of a polar bear, he met the creature with strong, vicious blows of his front paws.

And there, stood upon the stone altar watching it all unfold, was the spirit of Wynne the Moon Witch. 

Her white, deadened eyes observed the fight with apparent glee. She would dance and then laugh at any successful blows, cheering with all the excitement of a child.

Maleficent had seen enough. Turning quickly to Aurora, she pushed her towards the doors.

“Go,” she demanded, shoving the doors open with her wing. 

Aurora was panicked. Looking between Maleficent and where Diaval fought beyond, her expression turned defiant. 

“I’ll not leave you! You’re wounded, mother!” Her insistence could barely be heard above the screams of the baby in her arms, however, and she faltered, more tears building in her eyes. 

“Take your son and go, Beastie. Run out of the castle grounds and head for the Moors. Do not stop, just go!”

“But -!”

“Go, Aurora, go! Don’t turn back. Run to safety and protect our people!”

The queen’s usual stubbornness was forced to take a step back. If not for Riordan, Maleficent knew that Aurora would disobey and use her wits to help fight in whatever way that she could, but in her arms she held her beloved son, the future of the Moors and of Ulstead. With a mournful cry, Aurora turned and ran through the ruined temple entrance with her handmaids, bounding over fallen stone as she went.

Maleficent watched her go, pained to be sending her daughter out into the danger of the Feth Fiadha alone, but she could not protect her. Not like this. The Moon Witch would have surely targeted her if she had stayed.

As it were, the dreadful apparition of a faerie she had watched plummet into cold waves was enjoying the show too much to have noticed the escape. Dull and dead though her eyes were, they lit up whenever something was destroyed by the brawling beasts before them, her bedraggled, snowy wings spread wide with triumph. She danced about the altar, kicking away the religious relics and laughing a high-pitched, tinkling laugh, revelling in newfound life.

First Stefan, now Wynne. Either it was sheer coincidence, or whoever was responsible for the rise of the mist and the monsters had specifically brought the two of them back from the Otherworld. 

Maleficent had never felt such rage. 

Were she able, that rage would have been unleashed with all her might. Perhaps she would have turned into a phoenix and devastated the wicked creatures plaguing the kingdom. She would have sunk her claws into Wynne’s spirit and destroyed her with her golden magic of life. That rage, however, was doomed to fester inside of her. She could not summon her healing magic, she couldn’t even feel it by that point, for the powers of death and darkness flooding the city were suffocating her. The iron searing at her flesh made her power weak and unstable - she tried to strike at Wynne with the same torrent of fire she had used to destroy Stefan’s spirit, but she missed and hit the giant stained glass window behind the altar.

The colourful glass shattered deafeningly. Millions of pieces crashed to the ground, exposing the green mist hanging low over the world outside. 

Wynne deflected the glass with her wings. Distracted, she turned to look at Maleficent through her shaggy white bangs, dry lips pulling back in a snarl.

Before the faeries could engage further, Diaval and the white shapeshifter came between them, still fighting in the shapes of massive bears. Their heavy feet stomped through the pews and splintered them into pieces. Just when it seemed as though Diaval had the upper hand, his foe transformed in a swirl of snow-white mist into a creature entirely alien to Maleficent - a monstrous animal with tusks and a trunk that dragged along the ground. It trumpeted, and then it charged, its massive head barrelling straight into Diaval’s chest and smashing him so hard into a marble pillar that great chunks of the elaborate ceiling came crashing down as it shattered.

The entire temple shook dangerously. Clouds of white dust spurted into the air, blinding Maleficent. At the deathly silence that followed, she cried out and tried to stumble over the ruined pews towards the pile of broken stone.

“Diaval!”

The agony of the iron was nothing compared to this. Never had she felt so helpless, so unable to fight! She was the strongest of all fae, it wasn’t right that she was forced to simply watch such devastation unfold!

Before she could reach the shattered remnants of the pillar, Maleficent was struck in the side, hard. She went flying into broken, wooden shards, winded, and quickly worked to extract herself back into the aisle, unable to even stand. Panting, she rolled onto her side and found Wynne there leering over her.

The witch was even more dreadful up close. She was surprisingly small. Her dark dress was tattered and flowed about unnaturally, as if she was swathed in shadows. Black talons crowned gnarled, grey fingers and the peaks of her snowy wings. She had the sort of face that might have been beautiful if not for the maddened greed and bloodlust that occupied her features. Moreover, death had seen her become gaunt and ashen.

Not that it seemed to bother her. Wynne was remarkably happy about her circumstances, stood there over a wounded Maleficent. She stared, and she smiled.

“I knew you would come,” the witch said musically, clasping her small hands together with glee. “Poor Aurora, poor Diaval! Left alone to fend for themselves. I knew it would be worth coming back to see you all suffer.”

As she spoke, a large, white shape rose from the piles of broken stone. The mysterious shapeshifter used its trunk to sling a man-shaped Diaval over to Wynne, and he landed heavily by her feet, covered in bloodied white dust. Half-conscious, he coughed that dust out of his mouth and barely responded when Wynne crouched down beside him and held his face between her fingers, forcing him to look at her.

The lacerations on his face saw him blinded, so she carefully wiped the blood from them and then smiled again when he blearily focused on her.

“Hello, pretty bird. The Otherworld is so cold without you.”

Maleficent snarled and pulled herself forwards. In her fury, the temple darkened and green magic threatened to burst from her, burning there at her hands and on the ground beneath, but there was a fog in her mind that acted as a ravine that she could no longer cross. The iron was white hot in her flesh, weakening her at every passing second. 

“Don’t you dare touch him,” she commanded viscerally, but she hated how small her voice sounded. Hissing threateningly through her teeth, she clawed Wynne’s hands away and moved herself protectively over Diaval’s prone form. 

The faerie trembled. She felt sick with anger and fear. Her heart fluttered in wake of her injury, which was leaking blood and magic and smoke. Still, she would not be moved. She would not give up. The abusive fiends of the world would have no power over her or those she loved, of that she was sure, and she would fight to the death if it meant protecting those dear to her. 

Wynne just giggled and stood up. Holding out her arm, she silently summoned the enemy shapeshifter, and it flew over to stand on her forearm in the shape of a white raven.

The creature was damaged, nearly falling apart as a result of the deep wounds it bore, but it did not bleed. It did not seem to even suffer. It was as dead as Wynne was, and if it was destroyed, it would simply return to the Otherworld to regain its body with the others. 

“I call him Dána,” Wynne crooned affectionately, rubbing the underside of the raven’s neck. “Lovely bird. Very obedient. Not quite as exciting as the real thing. This one doesn’t turn into a man.”

The white raven cawed throatily, tilting its head as it watched them all with those dreadful red eyes.

Burning with hatred, Maleficent hissed again.

“Are you responsible for all this?” She demanded, careful to keep Wynne distracted for as long as she could. “The Feth Fiadha! Why is the Otherworld attacking Ulstead?!”

Wynne smirked, beginning to walk a slow circle around them, her wings dragging through the dust and debris.

“Not little old me, though I jumped at the opportunity when it presented itself, of course. Death will not stop me from taking back everything you took from me, I promise you! The gods rallied those who dwell in Tech Duinn, the island of the dead, and now here I am.” The witch’s pale eyes seemed to fill with life for a moment as she completed her circle, gazing down at Maleficent with amusement. “That iron will kill you before long, you know, and … if the stories are true, the soul of a phoenix never rests. You will never see the Otherworld, Maleficent. And so when I take your family from you, you will never see them again. Is that how it goes?”

That fog-filled ravine in Maleficent’s mind suddenly did not seem so broad. 

The anger reached a part of her that was truly feral. There was no rationalisation, no caution, only sheer instinct. Reaching deep inside herself, she sought a way to get Wynne as far away from them as she could.

She took a running leap over that ravine, but she did not reach the other side. 

Green fire exploded from her hunched form. It was a last, desperate resort. The violent pulse of her power struck the marble pillars and destroyed each and every one of them, and Wynne was thrown beneath them as they toppled. Whatever happened to her after that, Maleficent was in no state to see it. 

Her vision began to fade. Holding on to her mate, she turned her head into his neck and spread her wings to shield him from the chunks of ceiling beginning to rain down across the temple. The very structure was shaken and threatened to bury them before long, but Maleficent no longer had the power or strength to move, for the iron and her last ditch attempt to save them from the witch had drained her.

She could hear the thunderous rumbling. She could feel the stone thudding into her wings and her back. Then, she felt herself being rolled over and there was a gentle weight across her body, as though the nightmare had never occurred and they were still holding each other in that silken bed, so careful and reverent were the hands touching her.

“Darling,” she whispered, feeling warm tears cut through the dust on her cheeks. Around them, the world was falling in, but nothing was more devastating than the blurred image of her mate’s pale, bloodied face. She wanted to tell him to run, to leave her, but she knew he wouldn’t. Diaval was loyal to the end. 

“Close your eyes,” he murmured softly. “I’ll get you back to Aurora, I promise.”

Pain lanced her heart at that. As the searing agony of the iron overwhelmed her, Maleficent did as was bid and gave in, though not before seeing those dark eyes above her begin to turn a dangerous, burning amber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most aspects of what’s happening are taken from Gaelic folklore, though with a lot of artistic liberties taken: the Feth Fiadha was a magical mist that hides the unseelie and was also an indicator of the Otherworld’s presence. Here it is used as a means for monsters/souls of the undead to attack the city though that certainly would not be its sole purpose, especially if used by more peaceful entities. In addition, Donn was indeed a god that was believed to be an ancestor of the Gaels, and he resided on an island off the coast of Ireland. Again, artistic liberties have been taken with the character. He leads the souls of the dead and his presence lends them the ability of touch and even magic. Why, though, we’ll hopefully find out.


	4. Distance

Aurora had never properly considered what life would be like without her parents. There were times when they had all been parted, but it was only ever temporary. Maleficent and Diaval had been a presence in her life ever since she was a baby, and they had never truly left her since.

They were stood back in the shadows for all that time, and perhaps it was that they had never truly emerged, urging Aurora into a life of light and love by crowning her a queen of fairykind. They would stand together and smile as the young woman was adored by her people. They had given her a life that little girls dreamed of, and they had fended off all the dangers in the world so that she could live in peace with her family. For that, Aurora adored them, loved them endlessly, and so to leave them behind tore at her heart.

The queen wept as she ran, guilt bubbling in her belly. She and the others had run into the temple from the castle, hoping that it would be safe, and it was there Diaval had found them and protected them from the white monster on their tail. And then her poor mother … dragging herself onwards with that burning wound! That she had left them to fight that awful faerie and the ghostly shapeshifter alone hurt her because they had only ever leapt into danger to protect her for all those years. 

She wasn’t even their child. She was Stefan’s child, but they had raised her from the shadows of the forest regardless. And now they would endure the worst for their kindness.

But she could not let her sorrow show. Not yet. Not while she was a queen, even if she wore nothing but a ripped nightgown and carried a screaming prince in her arms. She had to protect Riordan and her people no matter what. 

And so she ran as quickly as her bare feet would carry her. The magical green fog was impossible to see through, so she followed landmarks of the gardens when they approached and did her best to hurry in the direction of the Moors. The handmaids lifted their skirts and ran along behind her, they too dressed in nought but their sleep attire, and though they were as terrified and confused as she, they managed to keep themselves well enough collected whenever a monster or spirit would protrude from the fog.

It seemed a group of barely-clothed women was not of interest to the monsters, who fought the guards and soldiers tirelessly about the grounds as though a fight was all they wanted. The horrible veiled women with the lanterns and the mischievous devils had since disappeared into the castle to cause havoc inside. People were still running from every doorway, and those that saw Aurora joined her group as they charged towards the castle gates.

On the way, Aurora stopped only once, and that was to pick up the sword of a fallen soldier. It was heavier than she thought it would be and almost tipped her over when she stood up, but she carried on regardless, holding the weapon aloft with one arm and her son in the other. 

Thankfully, she didn’t have to use it. Leading the group of humans and fairies that had sought her in the mist, she headed straight for the river that divided Ulstead and the Moors. A bridge had been built there after the wedding to connect the kingdoms, but it was impossible to see it. Aurora ran in a vague direction towards it with that heavy sword up and ready to swing down on any monster that dared cross her path. 

The Moors had already responded. She had never been more relieved to hear the chattering of fairies in the distance. Ahead, she could see bright lights illuminating the mist, balls of magic and fire surging out into the heavy fog to either light or banish it entirely. The closer she got, the more of them she could see - fire sprites flinging their multi-coloured fiery orbs at the unseen while others hovered about in the sky to light the path to safety.

Flower fairies were busy constructing thick, rounded huts made of vines and brambles along the river’s edge. The wallerbogs crawled from the water and threw great blobs of mud in every which direction, pelting any ghoul that dared venture close. Meanwhile, the tree warriors were striding through the water and wrangling giant red bats from the air to fling them away. Every kind of fairy imaginable, no matter how great or small, were making their way to Ulstead to lend their aid. 

“Take shelter!” Aurora demanded of the group following her, and they obeyed at once, fleeing into the protective structures the flower fairies built. The queen remained outside, turning when she heard a familiar voice calling.

“Aurora! Aurora!”

It was Phillip. He rode in on a white horse, bleeding from his temple but otherwise unharmed. Relieved, she ran up to his side and helped him down from the horse to embrace him.

“I’m so glad you’re alright,” she breathed, and the pair embraced again. Phillip took Riordan into his arms and kissed his head to try and soothe him, rocking him gently back and forth. His gaze lingered on Aurora, however, a numb sort of look to his eyes.

Another rider approached, then, following close behind. It was King John, who looked a mixture of devastated and flummoxed. The pair helped him down from his horse and he gaped at them before gesturing wildly around, a manic fear in the poor king’s eyes. 

“Does anybody know what the  _ hell  _ is going on?! Why is my kingdom being destroyed by these creatures?! Imagine waking up to find that your nightmare has come true!”

Nightmare was certainly a word for it.

“They’re not Moorfolk,” Aurora felt the need to explain. “They’re not even of this world. They brought the dead with them. I swear that this magic has not come from the Moors.”

“Oh, I know, dear girl. The fairies have been nothing but kind since our kingdoms united!” Running his hands back through his hair, King John turned and faced his falling city with apparent devastation, even if little could be seen of it. “Thousands of my people are fighting for their lives! Rounding up the army has been impossible, we can’t see a bloody thing! Dear, would Maleficent have any idea what to do? Where is she?”

Now that they were in the relative safety of the fairies' assault, Aurora finally had the chance to look back and consider what had happened. How she’d had no choice but to turn and run away when all she wanted to do was help her parents win a losing battle. Still clinging tightly on to the pommel of the sword, the queen fought the desire to run straight back into the castle grounds and bury the blade into Wynne’s chest herself.

“The Moon Witch,” she explained weakly, her throat tight with emotion. “She is here with the dead. She trapped me in the temple with the others. Mother and father, they … they’re fighting her off, but they’re injured. Iron, they used iron on her, I don’t know if …” Her words broke. The tip of the blade sank to rest on the grass at her feet. “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fight the dead. I don’t know how to fight at all!”

“The Moon Witch?” Phillip said slowly, holding Riordan protectively in his arms. “How is any of this possible? We must help the people, but we can’t even see the city from here. There must be something we can do! Anything!”

Before he had even finished speaking, a violent wind arose as if out of nowhere, blowing in from the sea. It was strangely warm, touching at Aurora’s chilled skin like an old friend. As they struggled to find their balance following the mysterious gale, dead leaves and fallen feathers struck gently at them from the ground.

Not a moment later, an eldritch roar shook the very earth. The powerful wind faded.

It was the bellow of a supernatural beast, that much was certain. It was a devastating, rage-filled sound, and Aurora recognised it at once.

Hope dared alight in her heart.

“Good god. What now?” John spun back towards the city, though was swiftly subject to a wallerbog’s mud-ball splatting into his face. Wiping it away, he gaped into the swirling mystery of the green mist. “A demon?!”

“No,” said Aurora, following his gaze. “A dragon. It must be Diaval! I would know that sound anywhere!”

There came the sound of breaking stone, rumbling earth. Another roar arose from the din.

And then there was a massive spire of orange within the fog, and the dark silhouette of Ulstead could be seen as that great fire blazed, the shadows of the city shaking and swirling beneath the flaming torrent. The shape of a dragon as big as the temple itself could be seen taking flight, carrying that stream of fire with it. The beast did not take a breath. Though the light of its flame moved and turned towards the ground, it served as a constant illumination within the veil, burning the very darkness away.

Aurora’s smile fell. The dragon’s shadow did not seem to distinguish between enemy and structure. The fires burning ahead grew ever stronger because there were buildings burning in its wake, including the castle itself. It wreaked vengeance with its mighty wings and tail as much as it did with fire, breaking the castle wall to the ground. She had never seen such rampant devastation in all her years. Ahead was a hellish scene of fire and destruction and it broke her to bear witness to it.

“That can’t be Diaval,” Phillip said unsurely, his eyes wide with dismay. “There are people still escaping the grounds!”

The dragon bellowed mightily again in the distance. The creature turned upon the castle walls and then spread its massive wings, so big that they seemed to blanket the sky entirely as it took to the air and soared towards them. The wyvern was larger than anything Maleficent had ever turned Diaval into, and Aurora was not sure whether to hope it was him or not, but as it came closer and its details were unveiled, she knew the answer. 

Lava dripped from between the dragon’s teeth. Though its mane and back were feathered, there was nothing of Diaval’s kindness in its bright, amber eyes. Only the rage and hunger of a true beast. Those enormous black wings beat at the mist and banished it away from the river’s edge, sending monster and fairy alike whizzing back in those great gusts of air without care. 

Aurora felt like an ant in comparison to the scaled creature. Regardless, she ran up to it when it landed (ignoring the objections of Phillip and John), and waved her free arm wildly to try and get its attention. 

“Diaval!” She cried, frantically searching for any sign of her father there in the dragon’s features. “You must stop this!”

The queen immediately regretted her words when the mountainous dragon turned its massive head to look at her, those terrible eyes fixing on her and her alone. Rows of razor sharp teeth were exposed as it growled in warning, its gaze fixing on the sword Aurora held in her hand. 

She dropped the weapon at once and held up her hands, tears building in her eyes. 

“Diaval, it’s me! Aurora! The fairies are here! It’s safe -  _ you’re _ safe, now.” Her lower lip wobbled with emotion, though she took a bold step forwards, encouraged by the lack of fire or claw flung her way. Indeed, the more she spoke, the more the severity of the dragon’s stare seemed to lessen, and she was careful to keep her tone gentle. “It’s alright. You can transform. It’s only me, father. Please.”

Diaval made a small rumbling noise in his throat. Balancing clumsily on his wings, he presented one of his huge hind paws and then opened it to deposit a dark, feathery shape onto the grass.

_ Mother.  _

Aurora almost wept. She could not tell if Maleficent was alive, but she dared not move. Diaval was moving protectively about the body, keeping it covered with his great, black bulk, and he snapped viciously at any fairy that unwittingly approached. The violence and lack of cognition was terrifying - it seemed not to be her father at all but a true dragon fiercely guarding something that it didn’t really understand, one that was wounded and scared and ready to lash out at any moment. 

The burning castle beyond was a miserable reminder of it all.

“It’s me,” Aurora said again, crying softly. “Aurora. We can help her, you just need to let us close!”

The thunder of hooves rumbled nearby. Now that the fog was briefly cleared by the riverside, the approach of riders could be seen - armoured men doing their utmost to control terrified horses. Some of them carried children and frightened townsfolk, too, and when they stopped there by the river, the guards quickly escorted the people into the shelter provided by the fairies. Percival, the Captain of the Guard and Phillip’s good friend, dropped down from his horse before it had even stopped and sprinted towards the dragon with his sword raised.

Diaval was transforming by then, but something was not right. He was attempting his man-shape but could not settle on it. Aurora watched with rising horror as he fell to his front, black scales and horns rippling across his skin and that formidable amber glow to his eyes cutting through the night. A shadowy magic was raging violently about his form, doing its best to transform him back into a dragon against his will and pulling all kinds of monstrous sounds out of him.

Helpless, Aurora ran over to her parents when she saw the Captain of the Guard racing over and threw herself over them before Percival’s sword could fall.

“No!” She screamed.

Percival stopped, staring down at her with enraged affront.

“That monster just destroyed half the castle, Your Majesty! My men are still escaping the grounds! They could have been killed! Look!” The blade of his sword pointed at Diaval, who was still writhing and fighting the transformation threatening to claim him. “The stories were true. Ulstead may welcome Moorfolk but we do not welcome demons!”

“That’s enough, Percival!” Phillip yelled as he ran over. “We have bigger things to be worrying about. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation -“

“The Moon Witch!” Aurora could barely hear herself past the unnatural but sorrowful sounds her father was making. Quickly lifting one of Maleficent’s wings, she rolled the faerie over and was enormously relieved to see a steady rise and fall of her chest. “The dead attacked them. Fairies! Take her into shelter and find a way to remove the iron in her shoulder, quickly!”

At once, wallerbogs and other fairies ran across the grass and gently took hold of Maleficent, lifting her with their paws or their wings. The unconscious faerie was swiftly carried away to safety, leaving behind a scent of blood and burnt skin. Diaval tried and failed to crawl after her, stopping when the shaking and the shadowy magic trying to change him would not allow for it. 

“What the hell do we do?!” Percival yelled, urgently spinning to face the wall of stinking fog concealing the kingdom. “What foul magic is this? The Moors must be able to send it away!”

“I have never seen this before,”Aurora insisted, tearfully holding down a mournful Diaval. “The fairies do not know anything of necromancy! This is nothing to do with my kingdom!”

“It’s magic. Your kind know more of it than we do!”

“Enough,” interrupted Phillip, shaking his head. “We haven’t the time. Percival, get your men to defend this stretch alongside the fairies. We can pull the people in from the mist as they come. Father, will you oversee the care of the injured?” He looked briefly over at John, who nodded fervently and headed off towards the bramble shelters. Percival, too, made off with his orders, a formidable uncertainty on his features as he passed Aurora and Diaval. Phillip held Riordan’s head gently against his chest and peered with sympathy down at his wife, who was struggling to keep Diaval still. “Aurora. You should let him fly away.”

“What?” The queen shot at him. She was trying to press her weight down onto her father’s arms to keep him pinned to the ground, fearing he would cause himself damage with the claws and the monstrous transformations that threatened. “He’s trying, Phillip! It was an accident! There are worse things happening across the city as we speak!” Desperate, she pushed Diaval over onto his back and sat on his chest. “Father, you must stop this. Why can’t you control it?! The Moon Witch isn’t here, she isn’t -“

Diaval’s eyes snapped open at mention of the name. They possessed not their usual dark warmth, nor the crinkles of a kind smile. They were burning slits and Aurora was terrified to see such a raging power possessing one so gentle. It was unfortunate indeed that there were humans around to witness the monstrous display; they would not care to know the true measure of her father’s character, only that he appeared in that moment to live up to his reputation as a demonic wrongdoer. 

“Father,” Aurora begged, and she reached down to touch the man’s face, only for the streaks of blooming black across his skin to burn her. Unfazed, she instead tried to take his clawed hand into hers. “Please.  _ Please _ . Don’t be frightened. I’m here. It’s alright.”

The rage in those terrible eyes seemed to quell just slightly. 

It wasn’t enough. A dark wind was rising, and it was nothing to do with the magical mist.

“Aurora! It’s too dangerous,” Phillip insisted, and Aurora felt his hand upon her shoulder. “Let him go before he hurts you. Something must have corrupted his power somehow. That isn’t Diaval there. Let him go.”

“No! It was the Moon Witch! He was right there, Phillip! Look what she did to them! She hurt them! I’ll find a way to destroy her, I swear it!”

Struck by the unusual aggressiveness of her own words, Aurora relented and turned to find her husband staring at her with a grim sort of shock. She must have sounded more like her mother in that moment, but she did not care how unlike her it was. The blood of both her mother and father stained her clothes and it filled her with an ire unlike anything she had ever known. 

Whoever was responsible for the mist would pay dearly. Maybe she could not fight, maybe she did not know magic, but she would find a way.

That magical wind was blowing through her tangled hair. Stricken with rage and upset, she refused to let go of her father’s doublet until it became clear that he could not fight the transformation much longer. 

Diaval gazed at her. There was something more of him in his torn features, now, something in the quivering of his lips, the way he reached for her when she reluctantly pulled herself away. There was a devastation to the way he reached for the ripped envoy’s sash around his body and found a last burst of autonomy to pull it off and throw it to his queen’s knees. Aurora took it and held it tightly in her hands, nodding slowly with acceptance as tears rolled down her cheeks. 

“Go,” she whispered into the wind, watching the violent swirl of shadows coat her father’s form one more time. “They’ll have no mercy for such a shape.”

Feeling Phillip tugging at her, Aurora scrambled to her feet and followed him back to safety. The giant tree warriors defending the fairy shelters carefully stepped over them and joined together the long branches of their arms to form a defensive chain, not only protecting human and fairy alike from the monsters making attempts on their temporary sanctuary but the great, black dragon that reappeared in a swirl of smoke.

Diaval roared, splattering the earth with lava. His nostrils flared and he rocked urgently from side to side in a show of anxiety. Perhaps the creature was searching for Maleficent, and it pained Aurora to watch his distress from behind a tree warrior’s leg. Did he know that Maleficent was safe? Did he even understand what was happening? 

With a tormented whine, the dragon turned his head towards the sky. There was little fight left in him - the beast was too tired, too injured, and perhaps vaguely aware that there was no need to protect what he had guarded so viciously. Opening his wings, he ascended into the sky and his titanic form was swallowed by the green veil, lost to it in no known direction.

Hastily wiping away her tears, Aurora hurried from behind the tree warrior’s leg and sought her blade in the grass. Armed in nothing but her tattered nightgown, she held the sword up with both hands and joined her people in protecting the small sanctuary. It was rage and sheer determination that kept her from dropping the weapon or stumbling - she did not fall, not once, cutting through the wall of mist with the heavy sword whenever a monster ventured forth. 

For her son, she would not stop. For her family. Her parents. It was them who needed her, now, and she would not fail.

* * *

“Aurora.”

It was the first word on Maleficent’s lips.

The faerie’s eyes flickered open. With a gasp, she sat bolt upright and gazed around her, finding herself in a dim shelter that she had never seen before. Upon a makeshift bed of leaves and feathers, she quivered as dire memories began to flood her awakening consciousness. Her dreams had been sweet in comparison to the horrors that she began to remember.

Stefan. Wynne. Aurora and Riordan’s screaming. Diaval’s pale, blood-streaked face. The night had begun so sweetly, but it seemed fate had other things in store, bringing cruel spirits back to life and turning nightmares into a bitter and terrifying reality. What had she missed while unconscious? How long had she been lying there while the world raged around her?

She was not alone. Somebody was humming and bustling about the small, intricate fairy shelter, and she recognised him to be Lickspittle, the pixie who’d had his wings cut off by Queen Ingrith. He held a pair of long tweezers up to where a soft light was seeping in between the brambles, turning the iron pellet between them this way and that with a degree of fascination.

Maleficent smelt the tang of blood. With a quiet hiss, she drew in on herself. Images of Stefan with that iron chain and that strange new weapon bore themselves into her thoughts. A prickling chill raced down her spine and across her skin, both revulsion and a shameful, sickening fear taking hold. Stefan had truly been there, stood right in front of her and saying those awful things. 

She did not allow herself to focus on it. Opening her hand across the bandaged wound on her shoulder, she allowed her healing magic to flow in and seal the injury shut, careful to keep her wings close about her body as vulnerability crept in; Diaval and Aurora were the only ones she would have let see her so exposed and unguarded.

Peering at Lickspittle over her wing, she quickly magicked a formless dress and a dark crown to keep back her hair. 

“Oh!” The pixie exclaimed upon seeing her awake. In his surprise, he dropped the iron pellet and squeaked when it almost fell right onto his foot. “Oh, toadspots! Nearly did myself a naughty, there. Ho, ho!” With a nervous chuckle, he kicked earth over the iron to bury it and turned his attention back to Maleficent. “I think I got all of it out. Does it still burn at all?”

It took her a moment to acknowledge his question. Her thoughts were drifting quickly back to her family.

“No,” she murmured, looking around at the magical construct that sheltered them. “Is it over? Where is Aurora?”

“Erm, the queen is - oh -“

Lickspittle did not get a chance to finish his answer, for Maleficent stood and strode straight past him towards the small hole in the brambles - though not before conjuring a small rose onto the strap of his overalls as a small gesture of thanks. He beamed down at it and followed her out of the shelter to resume his work with the rest of the injured.

Of which there were many.

Maleficent was stunned by what she saw upon emerging out into the breaking dawn. 

The Feth Fiadha was gone, as were the monsters and the spirits that had walked unseen within it. The sky was still dark, though orange blazed on the horizon behind the Moors. It was bright enough that she could see the carnage that had laid waste to Ulstead.

A third of the castle was in total ruins. Much of the walls surrounding it and the castle grounds had been brought down, too. Further beyond, she saw that many parts of the city were destroyed, and there were thousands of people sat around the fields nearby wearing expressions of numb shock on their dirtied faces. Even she could not help but feel for them; many of them had likely lost their homes and their livelihoods. Perhaps loved ones were missing, or worse. The injured were being tended to by fairies, but it seemed that some of them had not made it, the bodies covered in blankets or cloaks.

If not for Stefan, maybe she would have been able to save them. All she could do now was release a wave of golden magic among the wounded to aid their recovery.

The people were silent as she moved quickly among them. Trying not to dwell on their grief, she eventually found a very weary Prince Phillip instructing soldiers near the river’s edge. The side of his face was soaked with blood and he looked mere minutes from dropping to his knees, though he persisted in his endeavours nonetheless. Nearby to him, King John was staring vacantly out towards the smoking city ahead. 

Phillip’s face lit up with relief when he saw her approach. Dismissing the young soldier before him, he ambled over and pointed towards a small lump on the ground.

It was Aurora. The queen was curled up underneath a blanket with her son, a scorched sword placed nearby. Her fair skin was smudged with mud and her golden hair was in tangles, but she appeared mostly unharmed. She slept soundly, curled protectively around the dozing baby beside her. Maleficent was overcome with relief when she found her family alive and well, dropping down to her daughter’s side to press the softest of kisses to her dirtied temple. 

“She was fighting all night,” Phillip said quietly, and he groaned as he sat down to join them, rubbing his head. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe any of it.”

Maleficent watched him, surprised by the deep pangs of sympathy she had felt since awaking. As a rule, she did not like humans. Still, that did not mean she could not see the injustice of such a disaster. It didn’t mean that she could not feel for them, these innocent people who had done nothing to deserve an attack of such scale. If not for the apparent intervention of the Moors, perhaps Ulstead would have fallen entirely and even more humans would have been killed. 

And alongside that sympathy, there was anger.

Somebody was responsible. Somebody had made this happen. They had almost taken her family from her, almost destroyed a sister kingdom, and that was unforgivable. She would find whoever had dared invite such disaster to Ulstead and she would bring them all the pain and misery that they had wrought in turn.

She was distracted from that raging vengeance, however, upon realising that her family was not all reunited. Her heart leapt up to her throat. Looking quickly around, she tried to spot her mate among the hundreds of people gathered nearby, though knew it was futile because she could not feel his presence whatsoever. As those cold stabs of panic began to cut deep, she stared at Phillip as though he were somehow responsible for Diaval’s absence. 

“Where is he?” She demanded breathlessly.

It took Phillip a moment to figure out what she meant. Through his weariness, he appeared concerned and he gracefully looked away towards the sky.

“I’m sorry, Maleficent. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” She replied tersely. 

“Sorry.” Phillip nodded vaguely in the direction of the ruined castle in the distance. “That was him. I don’t know what happened.”

Maleficent followed his gaze. She did not care about the castle, though no doubt many of the humans did. Recalling the beginnings of the transformation she had witnessed before falling unconscious, she grit her teeth and looked back towards the prince. 

“The Moon Witch happened. He did what he had to.”

“I know. I’m trying to convince the others of that. All they saw was a dragon, and I think … I’m not sure, but he couldn’t control it. He didn’t seem to care if he hurt anyone. He brought you over and tried to transform but couldn’t, not properly. We had to let him fly away.” 

Phillip reached underneath Aurora’s blanket and produced the black and silver sash that the queen had gifted Diaval all that time ago. It was not the proud garment it once was - it was ripped and tattered and dirtied. Ruined. The royal crest upon it was split in twain, severing the rose, the faerie, and the raven entirely. 

Taking it into her hands, Maleficent stared forlornly down at the sash, running her fingers along its length. While it was a relief to know he was still alive, she found herself suddenly feeling as numb as the humans looked. The gift of Diaval’s shapeshifting felt to be more of a curse than ever. He had pulled her from the falling temple, of that there was no doubt, but at what cost? Was it chipping away at his learned humanity piece by piece until there was none of it left?

He was gone, and they were parted once again. He was gone, and she would pick up the pieces alone, fearing the return of the Feth Fiadha and Stefan along with it. 

Tightly gripping the garment, Maleficent returned her gaze to her daughter, who suddenly seemed that much older there beside her son. A cold feeling threatened at the faerie’s pounding heart. 

“The Moors will help you to rebuild the city,” she offered flatly. “The fairies will be happy to help. The Dark Fae, too. We will do what we can to bring Ulstead back to its feet.”

Phillip seemed surprised by that, though grateful. He quickly bowed his head towards her and took the opportunity to wipe away the thin trails of tears on his cheeks.

“Thank you. We already owe you a great debt for the Moors’ aid last night.”

“I did nothing. It was the fairies. I was …” Her voice catching, Maleficent glanced away and put a hand to her newly healed shoulder. “The mist smothered much of my power. There were gods of death walking among us last night. I could not heal myself, nor the people who so desperately needed it.”

The prince paled at that. He made a movement as if to reach over and put a hand on her arm, though thought better of it.

“You did what you could! I think I saw one of them near the armoury. It was this woman, probably five times my height, with black hair that reached the ground. There were crows all around her. And then she split into three women and they parted ways. I think it was -“

“The Morrigan,” Maleficent muttered. “And I saw Donn. They have not walked this earth for thousands of years, and yet there they were overseeing the near destruction of Ulstead.”

“What does it mean? What do we do?”

The faerie pursed her lips. She wished dearly that she knew the answers to Phillip’s questions. There were many things that she wished to know herself, like the identity of whoever had dared raise the spirits of those who should have been dead and separated her family. 

“I do not know, Phillip. The only way to know the will of the dead is to join them. I would suggest that you do not allow such a thing to happen. My daughter  _ is _ rather fond of you.” Still holding the sash in her hands, Maleficent rose to her feet and turned to face the Moors. “Get some rest before you keel over. Have people on guard now and for the foreseeable future. The fairies will stay here to help you.”

Before the prince could say anything, Maleficent spared her daughter one more loving glance before opening her wings. She took off into the sky, away from humanity after one final sweep over their numbers to lend them her golden, healing power, and then she headed for the Moors. She was, after all, the Guardian of one kingdom and not the other.

Flying swiftly through the bitter Winter wind, she took to every region of the Moors to ensure that the ghoulish invasion had touched no part of her land. Fortunately, the fairies and all of the creatures within were unharmed and seemed rather more confused than anything else, for many of them had seen the green mist approach from the sea.

They were safe, but for how long? Would the Feth Fiadha invade again? Would it come for the Moors next time? How would she be able to stop it? Would Stefan appear to her again?

And where was Diaval when she needed him?

Retreating to the lonely nest overlooking the River of Stars, Maleficent sat there on the ledge outside the cave and gazed brokenly out across the morning light. She touched at her arms nervously, and then at the strong stems of her wings, if only to make sure that they were still there. It truly felt as though she might turn and find them gone, just as Diaval was gone. 

For the first time in a long time, Maleficent felt helpless. When that one solitary morning turned into several long and empty nights, she remembered with painful ease what it was to be alone.

* * *

The Feth Fiadha did not return. 

It gave time for the reality of it to really sink in. It had all happened so suddenly that all the destruction and the deaths had been difficult to process. Now that it was over and rebuilding had begun, the heavy weight of sorrow was present in the hearts of all who dwelled in Ulstead and the Moors. Loved ones, all innocent human citizens, had been taken from the world and immortalised by the tragedy that had claimed them. Those left behind dwelt in their grief and the fear that came with every nightfall.

Many of the Dark Fae had since arrived to help reconstruct the ruined houses alongside their fairy kin. Nothing looked much the same as it did before; they used magic and strong vines to piece things together as best they could, though the stone structures would always bear the cracks of their trauma like scars. Other fairies served to help distract the people of Ulstead by playing games with the children and sitting with those who perhaps had nobody else. Things were this way for nearly three weeks, slowly rebuilding all that had been broken.

Meetings were held in the castle every few days in that time that invited the highest authorities in the two kingdoms, usually composed of King John and Prince Phillip, Percival, Aurora, and Maleficent. Sometimes, John’s young envoy, Maggie, was also present, scribbling away in her many scrolls. A few choice lords and ladies and fairies would sometimes bear witness to all discussed and offer their advice. The meetings, however, meant to land upon a decision upon what to do next, failed to meet their goal time and time again.

In the seventh meeting, Maleficent sat in silence while a pair of lords heatedly argued the idea of invading both Perceforest and Breoslaigh. She had stopped listening to their prattling hours ago. The humans had an awful habit of descending into useless arguments rather than settling on any concrete notions of cooperation and compromise. While it was agreed that either or both of those kingdoms were suspects in regards to the invasion, Maleficent had already said her piece: that they were in no position to be attacking anybody.

The seat that Diaval might have occupied by her side was vacant.

She wanted to look over and find him there with his arms folded. He would probably look somewhat stressed and annoyed, and he would roll his eyes when he caught her looking, if only to make her smile. Maybe he would secretly reach for her underneath the table and hold her hand. He knew his role, and he played it well, grounding her with his quips and jokes and silly faces. Oh, how she missed him. How she longed for him and his gentle heart.

How she hated him for disappearing.

She knew he was alive. His life was linked to her power, she could feel his heart alongside her own. Every now and then, she sensed his presence somewhere distant and hope flared every time, only for it to end with a bitter disappointment. He did not show his face, not once. He only disappeared to places where she could not feel him at all.

There had to have been a reason. She knew that. She knew  _ him _ . Diaval simply would not have abandoned his family, because Diaval always returned. He was always there. Maybe things had been immensely difficult as of late, maybe they had both been upset and tired and even scared of so many things, but that was not reason for him to leave. Was it? Why had he left her alone? Had he found something better somewhere else?

Maleficent’s sorrow welcomed anger where it was not wanted. One man had stolen much of her patience a long time ago. She would not be hurt by another, this time not by greed but Diaval’s inability to communicate just about anything regarding himself. If he wanted to keep his secrets, then so be it. Maleficent would not lie down and wait for the day he eventually decided to return to his family, not when there was so much to do and consider. 

That day would come earlier than expected, however.

Nineteen days. Maleficent remembered that. She remembered it there in Ulstead’s throne room, sat at that table with no hand secretly clasped in her own. She remembered it as she looked over the table at Aurora and lamented the weariness to her daughter’s face. She remembered it when she felt Diaval’s presence flicker at the edges of her senses, and especially when that feeling became stronger and stronger. For nineteen days, even in the aftermath of disaster, he had not shown his face. Not once.

The faerie silently seethed there at the table. She was of good mind to leave the castle entirely - it wasn’t like she really wanted to be there, not when it reminded her so fervently of that night three weeks past when she had run through the very same corridors desperately searching for her family. She did not want to be among these stone rooms and their silken beds, their glass windows and doors.

She did not bother announcing his arrival when at last it came; he did that well enough himself. When something heavy thudded into into the castle and shook the very walls, everybody save Maleficent scrambled to their feet amidst the dust falling from the ceiling, staring at each other in horror.

“Oh, good heavens,” King John exclaimed, grabbing his son’s shoulder. “It can’t be. Not again!”

“Don’t you worry.” Maleficent said, perhaps a little too loudly. She straightened up a little in her chair and flicked out her wings in indignation. “You can be seated. It is only my darling husband come to remind us that he still lives.”

John and Phillip glanced at each other. Slowly lowering back down into their seats, they both poured themselves generous helpings of wine. 

The few lords and ladies present sat down, too, nervously regarding the wooden doors still swinging off their hinges. Percival chose to remain stood, his hand slipping to the hilt of his sword. Perhaps the Captain of the Guard’s heart had been opened to the fairfolk, but not to the likes of everything else.

It took Aurora a moment to come to terms with what was happening. She looked between Maleficent and the door, clearly confused with her mother’s lack of enthusiasm, and then she bound for the entrance with a beaming smile on her face.

One which swiftly vacated. Her run slowed to a quick stop when a stream of guards flooded into the hall, their massive spears all pointed at the one who followed on behind. Slowly did they clear a path and allow Diaval to approach, spears raised like banners of war ready to descend should a single wrong move be made.

Maleficent’s gaze flickered across to observe. She might have appeared calm to any who looked at her, though her fingers were digging into her knees and her wings were twitching agitatedly. Everything that she saw hurt her. They beheld him as though he were a wild animal, and perhaps they were right to be cautious. Alongside the pain that came with seeing him again, there was shock, too, because she barely recognised him, and neither did anyone else.

There was silence as Diaval walked slowly through the parade of spears, his head held high. He wore old, leather armour that was unfamiliar to Maleficent. A thick cloak with a mantle of black, tattered bear fur draped across his shoulders. He was leaner, the cut of his drawn face somehow sharper, and his hair was substantially shorter than usual, sticking up in all directions save for the few strands that fell into his eyes. Half-healed remnants of his fight with the white raven were there for all to see, cutting into his eyebrow, his lips, even one of his ears.

Those who did not know him well might have been intimidated by what they saw, which was a strange concept to Maleficent. Diaval was only supposed to be intimidating when she needed him to be. The longer she stared, however, the more she could see how frightened he was. It was there in his gaze as he stopped and looked at them all.

His eyes met hers. She glared at him, too angry and too proud to go to him no matter how much she wanted to.

“Your Majesty,” Percival said, turning towards the king, “must we allow this?!”

John lowered his wine and nervously smiled, waving a hand. 

“Yes. Well. It’s only a castle, dear boy. You would all do well to lower your weapons. Ravens are protected under our laws, remember? And, erm … dragon or not, he is family. Let him come forwards, I insist!”

With a sigh, Percival sheathed his blade and slumped back down into his seat. One by one, the guards lowered their spears and began to filter out of the hall, though a small number of them lingered behind and joined their comrades along the walls. While they arranged themselves, Aurora approached her father and considered him a moment. She did not rush into his arms as she might have done before, perhaps wary and rightfully so. Not a few seconds later, however, she smiled again and drifted in to gently embrace him. 

Diaval’s face crumpled. Gingerly did he hold her, his head turning in to the golden locks of her hair.

“Diamond,” he rasped quietly, stroking a hand through those blonde tresses. “‘M so glad you’re alright. All of you.” Looking over her shoulder, he anxiously regarded those sat at the table. “Sorry for the castle. And sorry you had to see all that. It was … Aurora, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?” The young queen asked, pulling back from the embrace to regard her father with pained confusion.

“That I’ve been havin’ such trouble. It’s been that way since I was given this gift in the first place. I haven’t been able to control it, not properly. I turned into a dragon to save Maleficent from Wynne and the falling temple but I can’t remember none of it. It took days to be myself again.”

“Days?” Aurora pressed. Despite her apparent relief, there was a rising concern, even a sternness to her tone. “You’ve been gone for weeks. Where have you been? What happened?” She gestured over him and took a step back, parting the embrace entirely. 

“Yes. Forgive me.” Diaval’s harsh voice fell into a near whisper. He bowed lowly, the very picture of fear when he straightened up again and faced his daughter. “My Queen, I was … Once I gained control over my transformations again, I went to the kingdoms of Perceforest and Breoslaigh.”

The news left everyone in stunned silence.

Even Maleficent found not the words to speak, the cold chill of dread creeping up her spine and into her heart. 

Aurora stared, her lips parted in surprise. Whatever she might have felt regarding the matter, she kept it carefully hidden in the stillness of her voice when she spoke again.

“You gave me your sash, father. You gave up your title as my envoy.”

“I wasn’t doin’ envoy things, Your Majesty.”

He was looking at her with wide, glittering eyes. So devastatingly expressive. Heartbreaking, as always. There was a sincere remorse to the way he looked at her, but Maleficent knew it was only for the wrong that he had done to his family, not for the things he had resorted to. 

Aurora’s features tightened. Shifting a bit, she looked at the floor for a moment before raising her head again, her displeasure plain. 

“You spied on them,” she surmised, frowning.

“Yeah. It was just too coincidental, wasn’t it? Those two people showed up and the next thing we know, Ulstead is bein’ ransacked.”

“I know that. I did not consent to any of my people going off and spying on them, though. The Moors are better than that! What if they had caught you? Not only would we have lost you but it would have given them reason to retaliate! I think the last thing we need right now is another battle.”

“That’s right. That’s why I went, y’know, to try and gather information before somethin’ like that could happen again. Those monsters - they wouldn't stop for anything, would they? And the dead were even worse. Anyway, I’m right here because nothing bad happened, except for when I turned into a man outside the barracks in Breoslaigh and I got mistaken for one of their soldiers. That’s where I got the armour from. None of ‘em know what I look like, anyway, they just think I’m a demon raven. There’s even a song about me, now. I just wish they’d get me name right for once -“

“Stop.” Aurora ran her hands down her face and shook her head, aghast. She seemed too tired to be angry or to even cry. Gathering herself, she took hold of Diaval’s hands and held them together in hers, gazing beseechingly at him. “Enough is enough. You need to go home and rest.”

Taken aback, Diaval gaped at her. 

At the table, Maleficent closed her stinging eyes. She could not stand to witness any of it.

“What?” The shapeshifter questioned, laughing breathily out of nerves. “But you’re here.”

“Go home, Diaval. Father. You are not to leave the Moors again. Not until you’re better. Do you promise me?”

“But I’m not -“

“Stop,” Aurora said again, her frustration increasingly apparent. Agonised, she shook his hands a little and then pulled him into another embrace, resting her head against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry for the things that you endured, and I’m so grateful for everything you have done for me, but it’s my turn to look after you. You are not to leave the Moors until you are you again. Another transformation like that in the wrong place could lead to another disaster. I can’t let it happen. That’s an order from your queen.”

Any hope in Diaval’s expression faded into the gaunt weariness that claimed it. His arms slipped from around Aurora’s back and dropped to his sides.

“Diamond, I’m just - tryin’ to help. I need to help. I have valuable information about both kingdoms. I’m good at findin’ these things out. I’m sorry that I was gone, I had to do something to help and I wasn’t gonna be much use here -“

“You’ve done plenty. You saved my mother,” Aurora murmured. “I’ll get that information off you tomorrow. Please. You look dead on your feet.”

“But - Aurora, if I just -“

“No!”

The raising of the queen’s voice surprised everyone. Within the pause that followed, she fiercely regarded the man before her, suddenly more royalty than daughter in that moment out of the sheer necessity of it.

“No,” she said again, softly this time. “You can’t do these things without telling me. This isn’t you! If you had run it past me first, I would have said no. Mother was right. You’re in no state to be going anywhere.”

Maleficent did not look over. She could feel Diaval’s eyes upon her and she knew that they would look betrayed if she dared chance it. 

“You will wear that sash again one day. You earned it. I just can’t let you leave the Moors until I know you’re thinking things through.”

Another pause followed. It was only then she looked over and found the attention pulled from her. A wide assortment of emotions were crossing her mate’s face with rapid speed, though there was a consistent devastation that was eventually smothered behind the worst attempt at a smile she had ever seen. Still, that he was trying was somewhat commendable. 

Bowing down, Diaval kissed the back of Aurora’s hand and then took a few steps back, watching her with that painful smile and a bizarre mixture of remorse and pride.

“As you wish, Majesty. I’ll find you when you return to the Moors."

He surveyed the table moment, and his eyes did linger on Maleficent longer than anybody else, though he was not met with sympathy. His smile twitched. Bowing low again, he then turned and headed out of the hall without so much as a farewell, followed by the armed guards that had brought him in. In a manner most unlike him, it seemed he had quite forgotten his manners.

Maleficent stared at the doors ahead, even after he was gone. She felt a mixture of embarrassment and concern over his ragged, intimidating appearance and uncouth exit, though it was nothing compared to the anger she felt having learnt what he had been up to for all that time. Even worse was Aurora’s apparent upset when she turned, though she swiftly collected herself and headed back to the table.

“We’ve been here for hours,” Aurora said tersely, frowning. “We are no closer to coming up with our next step forward. I will collate whatever information Diaval has managed to gather from them, and we will join back here the day after next.”

“He could have incited a war,” said Percival, rising to his feet to gather his things. Angrily pulling on his cloak, he cautiously regarded Aurora’s decidedly stern countenance. “We can’t make any more mistakes when people’s lives are at risk. Your Majesty?” He turned to John for support.

The king shuffled a bit, fiddling with the sleeve of his elaborate robe.

“Well … I do fear any more, er … violence unfolding. God knows, Ulstead has seen enough war in its history. It breaks my heart that we somehow seem to be on the very brink of it again. Aurora, not to place any more on your shoulders, but - yes, while I’m indeed grateful for your father’s role in defeating the Moon Witch, perhaps you might …?”

He trailed off weakly, a hopeful gleam to his eyes. Aurora sighed and turned away to pull her flowery shawl over her shoulders, but before she could answer, Maleficent stood and spoke plainly.

“Some of you know him as a raven, others a dragon. Whatever he might seem, he has spent a lifetime stopping conflicts before they could even begin. I have long learnt to heed his advice when it comes. However …” The faerie took her cloak from the servant nervously offering it and headed away from the table. “Henceforth, he will be under close supervision. Aurora?” Tilting her head towards the door, she gestured at her daughter. “Let’s go home.”

The meeting had not served its purpose. They were no closer to finding the way forwards - not yet, at least. Nobody was comforted or feeling any more confident than before. It showed in their faces as they all parted ways again, a sort of fearful hopelessness that made Maleficent feel uncomfortable. Upset humans were foolish humans, she knew that much, and it felt as though it was only a matter of time until another bad thing in a whole row of bad things happened. How much more of it could they take? How much more could  _ she _ take?

Not much. She almost dreaded going home. 

Later that day, Aurora’s fairy caravan departed Ulstead and headed back for the Moors. The young queen was asleep in her carriage before they even departed. The horses travelled slower as not to wake her, so Maleficent flew on ahead, keen to avoid the dark clouds honing in across the massive expanse of her kingdom. It was dark and raining by the time she reached the mountains that crowned the River of Stars. The river was far from starlit that evening, its black edges bubbling and threatening to spill over its edges as the cold, heavy rain strengthened it. 

Maleficent landed on the rocky ledge that housed the cave she called home. Diaval was there in his raven-shape, sheltered on one of the hard, dead vines currently decorating the entrance. He kept his feathered back to her, an angry hunch to his wings, and Maleficent was immediately angered by his brazen lack of acknowledgement - though her words were stolen from her mouth when she nudged something with her foot. She bent down and picked up the small gift left for her: a bowl-shaped leaf that contained three dark pearls.

They were irregular in shape, but beautiful regardless. Her heart was softened by the familiarity of the little things the raven would bring her. Treasures, food, small things that had piqued his curiosity. It was not enough to stay her anger, however; that he refused to talk even now upset her considerably, and it was then she began to wonder if she had done something wrong before he had flown off and left her alone all those nights. 

Swallowing her words, she headed into the cave and ignored him in turn, not-so-accidentally spraying him with rain water as she passed by shaking off her wings. 

* * *

Back in the comfort of her own nest, Maleficent finally had the chance to allow all that pent up emotion a rare freedom.

Curled up there among things that smelt like home there in that dark cave, the faerie cried. She felt painfully alone, chilled by the Winter night and shrouded in darkness. It was as though the outside world did not exist at all, and at first it was a blessed feeling, for without the outside there would come no pain. There wouldn’t be anything. And then she realised what a lonely thing that would be if there was only nothingness. She had been devastated by such a thing before, and out of that loneliness, she had created a man out of a raven and taken a human girl under her own wing. 

How she longed for them. How she longed for their happiness, something that even she was not able to provide without enormous difficulty when the world was so set against them all. The years had been so hard and yet there came no reprieve, no rest, no matter how hard she fought. Just when it had seemed things could not get any worse, the ghosts of the past had risen to torment their victims as they had in life, and it was so unfair, so  _ cruel _ that such a thing could have happened. All of that was meant to be behind them, now. When would they finally be able to move on?

Her vulnerability was short-lived. When she felt the approach of a familiar presence, anger kindled in her heart. If it was time for them to face each other, then so be it, but her patience was as short as her fuse in her reluctance to feel such sorrow and rage regarding one that she loved. That she had been forced to question such a love as of late agonised her, even more so when she came to the conclusion that she could not be without it. Without the love of her family, what was she?

Sitting up, the faerie kept her back to the cave entrance and did not greet her mate when he transformed and walked slowly into their home. She could feel his gaze upon her and sensed his awkwardness. Gritting her teeth, she brought her knees up to her chest and sat there in stubborn silence, waiting for him to offer some sort of explanation.

“Maleficent,” Diaval greeted her shakily, his voice already floundering. “I know you probably want to throw me over the cliff.”

“Yes,” she agreed, strained.

“Oh, then … Could I tell you something, maybe? And then if you don’t like it, you can throw me off as many times as you want. We could do it all night.”

How she wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate his voice and his way with words. She wanted to hate how fearful he sounded, as though he truly thought she might take him by the wings and hurl him down into the wilds. She especially wanted to hate how his very presence made her heart yearn despite its rage, how easy it would be to roll over and ignore that anger until it went away. For both their sakes, she could not allow it.

“I needed you, Diaval,” she said, despising how morose she sounded. Emotion welled in her eyes and balled in her throat. Swallowing thickly, she drew her wings in close. “I have spent these nights alone wondering if the Feth Fiadha would come again. I feared Stefan would walk into our nest with that iron chain on his belt -“ Her voice caught. Clenching her hands around her knees, she shook her head. “I feared she would find you and take you from me for eternity. And you were nowhere to be found.”

The silence that followed was hollow.

She heard Diaval shift on his feet, though he was wise enough not to approach. It took him a long time to say anything or make any sort of acknowledgement of her words, for they hung heavily in the space between them, as terrifying as they were impenetrable. Eventually, when he did speak, his raspy voice was so tight with apparent upset that it was a wonder he could make a sound at all.

“I’m so sorry,” he managed, and the sheer sadness of it seemed so unjust. “I was … it all became such a mess, Maleficent, I couldn’t - I can’t even remember any of it, bein’ a dragon and those days after, and sometimes even when I transformed before then. But bein’ a dragon was the worst. It was just … we were there in that church and then I was a hundred miles away. I lost all my Diaval-ness. I couldn’t let you see me like that. I thought you might realise -“ he broke off, falling into silence. 

Angered yet further, Maleficent lowered one of her wings and looked over her shoulder at the shapeshifter, glaring through unfallen tears. Diaval stood as still as a statue, unable to meet her eyes.

“Stop that,” she demanded.

“Stop what?”

“Much of your Diaval-ness vacated a long time ago, and when we get closer to finding out why, you stop talking. You keep these things from me as if they will just go away. They will  _ not _ go away.” Her hard stare narrowed. “They will linger inside you, in your thoughts. They will transform you into things that you do not want to be. Allow them to fester and that dragon will devour what is left of you - and you know that. That is why it has taken you weeks to face me again. What is it you fear I might have realised? What is it that has made you so reckless?”

His black eyes moved anywhere that wasn’t her, moving up the walls to the ceiling, then back to the floor. Agitated, Diaval moved his hands to his hips and began to pace back and forth in that way he did when stressed, like a caged bird. 

“It isn’t so complicated. I’m just a raven. We have bigger things to be worryin’ about, Maleficent!”

“Try again.”

Diaval spun back to face her, annoyed and increasingly upset.

“I said we have bigger things to worry about.”

“What might I have realised? Tell me.”

“I’m just a raven!”

Tensing, Maleficent turned and rose to her feet, an angry flush touching at her chilled cheeks. How could one man be so infuriating? Why was he still stubbornly refusing to share whatever troubling thoughts had kept him from her for so long?

“Tell me, Diaval!”

“I am telling you!” Was his coarse response, and he actually dared raise his voice in a manner so unlike him that Maleficent was momentarily stunned. “I’m telling you, Maleficent! I’m just a raven! But that’s just you, isn’t it? You only ever listened when it was somethin’ you wanted to hear. I spent the rest of the time as a bird! I couldn’t tell you anything ‘cause I was always the one keepin’ you from flyin’ off the handle!”

He faced her dead-on, then. His eyes glittered with a rage successfully uncorked. Perhaps he did not realise how much his readiness for an argument actually comforted the faerie before him, how much the way he was prepared to stand up to an unburied slight reassured her that all was not lost. Though Maleficent did not like to be spoken to in such a way, nor even to address mistakes that she had made, she understood the necessity of it because she had grown from the woman that he spoke of, now. 

She met the unbuttoning of his thoughts in silence.

“You always wanted to remind me of what I was. Just an animal, a servant, and you kept me that way for years! And now we’re handfasted and tryin’ for a baby! How long did you keep me as a servant just so you wouldn’t have to admit to loving someone? I loved you but I couldn’t say anythin’, I’m only a raven and you’re a faerie. It was - it was lonely, sometimes. Other ravens were scared of me, did you know? And humans called me a demon. All I had was you but I couldn’t tell you any o’ that, could I? You never wanted to listen, even when I was tryin’ to help you. And now you ask me all the time what’s wrong and there’s this part of my mind tellin’ me it isn’t real. This doubt has been creepin’ in for years, I thought I would never be enough because of what I am, and now I can’t even control what I am, I can’t even give you a baby right because I’m a raven and you’re a faerie! And this stupid body gave me to her before you and I hate myself for it. The last thing I wanted was for you to see me lost as a dragon and to realise - to remember what I really am. Just an animal that can’t control himself. Nothin’ good enough for a faerie like you.”

Stunned, Maleficent stared at Diaval. Her thoughts fell blank as she watched him unravel. 

The man paced about a bit more and ran a hand down his scarred face, his gaze firmly set on the walls.

“I’m scared, Maleficent,” he admitted, lowering his head. “That one day I’ll transform and I won’t remember how to change back. I’m still tryin’ to figure out why a spirit gave a raven his power and expected that I could use it. And I’m scared that Wynne and Stefan are out there - just … it’s not fair, is it? They’re  _ dead _ . They shouldn’t be able to come near us. They shouldn’t even be able to touch us, but they can. I wish I knew what to do. I wish I was a stronger creature than what I am.” He stopped pacing and gazed blankly at nothing in particular. “I don’t even know what I am.”

While numb, Maleficent also felt sick to her stomach. She was finally able to begin piecing together things that, to her shame, she had not considered. Just a raven, he’d said.  _ Just a raven. _ There had always been more important things to worry about.

She understood as she silently dwelt upon it. It was that his thoughts, his wants, perhaps even his needs had been overlooked, swept under a rug because of what he was - a raven. A servant. Maleficent wondered if he had ever even understood that frustration before now. She looked back and recalled all those years where he had never been acknowledged as a friend to her or a father to Aurora. Nobody ever even remembered his name. The shadow of a powerful faerie had been cast over him that day on the farm, and out of love, he had stayed there. 

Something had turned him into a reckless and self-conscious creature. These aspects of him were new to Maleficent, though only because she had not seen it coming; the decline of his self-esteem had been so gradual, so secret, that she’d had no idea. He had purposefully kept it all from her out of a fear she would not listen or care. Perhaps he had not truly understood such human concepts and emotions, too - not until recently. And then Wynne had come along …

And Maleficent had held his cold, lifeless body in her arms, only just able to accept her love for what it was. Nobody would ever know the true extent of what he had given to prevent Wynne’s destructive Winter, and nobody ever would; he was not a prince or a knight or a magical faerie. Just a raven. And the cruelty of the world was testing his kindness more than it ever had. It was testing  _ them _ . 

Wordlessly trying to accept all she had heard, she took a small step back into the nest, her wings drooping. To learn she was such an enormous part of his anger upset her even more, though she did her utmost not to show it. It was a truth that she had needed to hear, after all, and he had needed to say it after all that time.

“Wait -“ Diaval began again, quickly approaching. He stopped when Maleficent flicked out a wing to bar his entry to the nest. Instead, he knelt down outside of it and peered at her over the intricately woven rim.

They had made that nest together, bickering back and forth for hours. What a warm and wonderful Spring day that had been, and it was so long ago.

The faerie sat back down in such a way she might look at him if she wanted to, though swiftly regretted it - there was that look to his face again, the large, puppy-like eyes, not only filled with sorrow but guilt, too. The softness of such an expression was at odds with the vicious, half-healed cuts that threatened to transform him into something he was not.

“Forgive me, Maleficent,” Diaval beseeched, bowing his head with a look of urgency. “I wasn’t … I got over it, I thought. I was ready to move on with you. There is nothin’ I want more than to be with you. I love you, Maleficent, I love my family, and everythin’ I have done is to try and help or protect you, however misguided. I wouldn’t change anythin’ about the past, not when it brought us together.”

“I want to hear you, Diaval. I want to listen. You must remember. You know that I love you. You  _ know _ . And yet you ventured elsewhere without talking to me. How  _ dare _ you turn up to the king’s court in the way you did! Your family have spent these past weeks fretting that you would not return, and you had not the courage to even visit.”

Distraught, Diaval slowly turned away and sat with his back against the edge of the nest.

“But now I understand things a little better, at least,” Maleficent continued, her tone softening. “You can’t see yourself for what you are. It is no fault of your own. I will never forgive myself for my part in not only sending you straight into Wynne’s grasp, but for making you feel as though you were nothing but a servant. I kept secrets from you, too, and it hurt us both more than I could ever have imagined.” 

“It’s done, though. It’s all in the past.” Diaval turned his head slightly, though did not look at her. “All I want is to move on with you, y’know, ‘cause I love you and we’re better together, aren’t we? You’ve done so much good for me. You gave me … everythin’, you gave me it all. You helped me understand that it wasn’t my fault - what she did. I’m not just an animal. I know that.” With a sigh, he rubbed a hand at the back of his head. “Maybe it’s just easier to see yourself the way everyone else sees you, sometimes. I know you understand that.”

“But you never saw me that way. Never. And I shall never consider you a mere animal, nor the demon they claim you to be. All I ask is that you do as Aurora says and stay in the Moors until -“

“I haven’t lost my mind, Maleficent -

“No, but you have lost something, haven’t you?”

He did look at her, then, hope flickering in his eyes.

“What is it?”

Maleficent regarded him with a frown. Slowly, she flattened her hands against her belly and closed her eyes, trying to push away the rampant fears filling her with that familiar cold. 

She was not alone. Not anymore.

“Your name, Diaval. Your name.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll join me with the third and final fic in this series, coming soon!


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